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All Alcides Amour Beak Caresses Childhood Correspondances Critics Dawn Enticements Experience

Famous Gérard de Nerval Quotes

“The last madness I’ll probably persist in is to believe myself a poet: it will be up to the critics to cure me.”

Poet Madness Critics

Book:Selected Writings

Source: Selected Writings

“Everything is alive, everything is in motion, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays that emanate from me or from others flow directly through the infinite chain of creation whose transparent network is in continuous communication with the planets and the stars. A captive here on earth for the moment, I commune with the chorus of stars and they join in my sorrows and joys.”

Stars Planets Rays Sorrows Joys Correspondances

Book:Selected Writings

Source: Selected Writings

“Man, free thinker! Do you imagine you alone think in this world where life is blazing forth in all things? You are free to avail yourself of the forces you command, but the universe has gone missing from your prescriptions.”

World Universe Man Free Thinker

Author:Gérard de Nerval

“Childhood memories surge back more vividly midway through life – like some palimpsest whose original text suddenly reappears after the manuscript has been chemically treated.”

Memories Childhood Text Palimpsest Manuscript

Book:Selected Writings

Source: Selected Writings

“How lovely she was in her raiments of silk and levantine purple; the fabric provocatively set off the sheen of her white shoulders, which glistened with the sweat of the world. I was on the verge of giving in to the dangerous enticements of her caresses when I realized that I recognized her from an earlier encounter, back at the dawn of time.”

Dawn Caresses Enticements Raiments

Book:Selected Writings

Source: Selected Writings

“J'étais si heureux de sentir mon cœur capable d'un amour nouveau !... J'empruntais, dans cet enthousiasme factice, les formules mêmes qui, si peu de temps auparavant, m'avaient servi pour peindre un amour véritable et longtemps éprouvé. La lettre partie, j'aurais voulu la retenir, et j'allais rêver dans la solitude à ce qui me semblait une profanation de mes souvenirs.”

Amour Lettre Profanation

Book:Aurélia

Source: Aurélia

“Illusions fall away one after another like the husks of a fruit, and that fruit is experience. It is bitter to the taste, but there is fortitude to be found in gall – forgive me my old-fashioned turns of phrase.”

Experience Fruit Illusions Gall Husks

Book:Selected Writings

Source: Selected Writings

“Notre-Dame est bien vieille : on la verra peut-être Enterrer cependant Paris qu’elle a vu naître ; Mais, dans quelque mille ans, le Temps fera broncher Comme un loup fait un bœuf, cette carcasse lourde, Tordra ses nerfs de fer, et puis d’une dent sourde Rongera tristement ses vieux os de rocher ! Bien des hommes, de tous les pays de la terre Viendront, pour contempler cette ruine austère, Rêveurs, et relisant le livre de Victor : — Alors ils croiront voir la vieille basilique, Toute ainsi qu’elle était, puissante et magnifique, Se lever devant eux comme l’ombre d’un mort ! [Odelettes (1834)]”

Paris Notre Dame De Paris

Author:Gérard de Nerval

“The name Prometheus has always caused me particular annoyance, for my breast still aches from the everlasting beak of the vulture from which Alcides set me free.”

Vulture Prometheus Alcides Beak

Book:Selected Writings

Source: Selected Writings

“One third of our life is spent in sleep. It is consolation for the troubles of our waking hours or atonement for their pleasures; but I have never experienced sleep to be mere repose. After a few minutes' lethargy, a new life begins, untrammeled by the limitations of time and space, and undoubtedly similar to that which awaits us after death...”

Book:Aurélia

Source: Aurélia