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Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Maeterlinck Quotes

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Famous Maurice Maeterlinck Quotes

“Look upon men and things with the inner eye, with its form and desire, never forgetting that the shadow they throw as they pass by, upon hillock or wall, is but the fleeting image of a mightier shadow, which, like the wing of an imperishable swan, floats over every soul that draws near to their soul. Do not believe that thoughts such as these can be mere ornaments, and without influence upon the lives of those who admit them. It is far more important that one’s life should be perceived than that it should be transformed; for no sooner has it been perceived, than it transforms itself of its own accord.”

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Author:Maurice Maeterlinck
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“At every crossway on the path that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. Let us have no fear that the fair towers of former days be sufficiently defended. The least that the most timid among us can do is not to add to the immense dead weight that nature drags along.”

MenPastSpiritCan DoPathThousandFairsWeightAddFormerPersistenceProgressiveDragImmenseTowersNo FearHave No Fear
Author:Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Brave old-flowers! Wall-flowers, Gilly flowers, Stocks! For even as the field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume, divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language; and each of them, like tiny, art-less ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four.”

MenArtThreeNamesLanguageFourFieldsFlowerWallBearsGratitudeBraveryBraveTinyDividesRaysCharmingPerfumeExesMedalTrifles
Book:Old Fashioned Flowers: And Other Out-of-door Studies
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“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together ... Speech is too often ... the act of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal ... Speech is of Time, silence is of Eternity ... It is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communication can ever pass from one man to another.”

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Author:Maurice Maeterlinck
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“No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her own: and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life, we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey.”

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Book:The Life of the Bee: Works of Maeterlinck
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