Alfred de Vigny
Alfred de Vigny
Alfred Victor, Comte de Vignywas a French poet and early leader of French Romanticism. He also produced novels, plays, and translations of Shakespeare. Unlike many of the French Romantics, Vigny was an army officer with conservative and consistently royalist views...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth27 March 1797
CountryFrance
stupid order understanding
I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance
pieces paper firsts
The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds
life dream age
What is a great life? It is the dreams of youth realised in old age.
men stories born
On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.
heart phrases matter
No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and yearnings of the human heart.
giving judging feelings
Just as we descend into our consciences to judge of actions which our minds can not weigh, can we not also search in ourselves for the feeling which gives birth to forms of thought, always vague and cloudy?
memories evil use
Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?
analysis human less literature needed social study
The study of social progress is today not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart.
determined dream good lived men stronger time
Let us dream that once upon a time have lived men stronger and greater, who were more determined for good or for evil; that does us good.
believe character mind
The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.
men thinking sight
I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller - some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity and experience, of the links of this vast chain of events which his sight could not take in.
real soul world
Invisible is real. Souls have their own world.
men together coincidence
To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances; and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fame
mother father two
Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?