ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE QUOTES
French writer, poet & politician (1790-1869)
Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless.
He speeds; we pass away!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Lake"
Too much I've seen, and felt, and lov'd in life,
Living I come to seek Lethaean calm;
Let me, fair scenes! forget all worldly strife,
Oblivion solely is my bosom's balm.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Valley", Poetical Meditations
To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Graziella: A Story of Italian Love
Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless,
Be happy while you may!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Lake"
What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Méditations Poétiques
Evening backward leadeth silence.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Evening", A Biographical Sketch: The Poetical Meditations and Poetical and Religious Harmonies of M. de Lamartine
Love is the enchanted dawn of every heart.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Méditations Poétiques
And when night, guiding her bright train of stars,
Throws o'er the sleeping world her gloomy veil,
Lonely amidst the desert and the darkness,
Musing upon the night's calm majesty;
Wrapt up in quietness, with shade and silence,
My soul more closely worshippeth Thy presence;
With an internal day I feel enlighten'd,
And hear a voice, which biddeth me to hope.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Prayer", Poetical Meditations
Utopias are often just premature truths.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Histoire des Girondins", Oeuvres Completes
I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did not believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at ease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me, the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say, "So much the worse for the losers!--the world is a lottery. Woe to the conquered!"
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Atheism Among the People
Already in the sacred bowl
I've quaff'd oblivion, and my rapturous soul
Heav'n's harbour gains full sail!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Dying Christian", Poetical Meditations
Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Second Meditations
He, who can create, abhors destruction.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Prayer", Poetical Meditations
Man, it seems, is not able to bear the languid rest on Nature's bosom, and when the trumpet sounds the signal of danger, he hastens to join his comrades, no matter what the cause that calls him to arms. He rushes into the thickest of the fight, and amid the uproar of the battle regains confidence in himself and his powers.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Méditations Poétiques
What mortal is there, over whose first joys and happiness does not break some storm, dispelling with its icy breath his fanciful illusions, and shattering his altar?
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Méditations Poétiques
God is only a word dreamed up to explain the world.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Le Tombeau d'une mère", Harmonies
There are places and climates, seasons and hours, with their outward circumstance, so much in harmony with certain impressions of the heart, that Nature and the soul of man appear to be parts of one vast whole.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Raphael: Or, Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
attributed, Forbes, 1991
Shall not this bygone Eden that we knew
In our Eternal Life have shape and hue?
For where Time is not shall not all Time be?
In that calm breast whereto our souls are cleaving
Shall we not find our loved ones beyond grieving
About the hearth-stone of Eternity?
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"Memory and Hope"
Our family is evidently our second self, more than self, existing before self, and surviving self with the better part of self. It is the image of the holy and loving unity of beings revealed by the small group of creatures who hold to one another, and made visible by feeling!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
Les confidences