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Quote by Sylvain Tesson

Work

Dans les forêts de Sibérie

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Author

Sylvain Tesson
Sylvain Tesson

Sylvain Tesson is a French writer born on April 26, 1972. His works span various genres including travel literature, nature observation, and philosophical contemplation. more

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“the dandy can only play a part by setting himself up in opposition. He can only be sure of his own existence by finding it in the expression of others’ faces. Other people are his mirror. A mirror that quickly becomes clouded, it is true, since human capacity for attention is limited. It must be ceaselessly stimulated, spurred on by provocation. The dandy, therefore, is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live it. He plays at it until he dies, except for the moments when he is alone and without a mirror. For the dandy, to be alone is not to exist. The romantics talked so grandly about solitude only because it was their real horror, the one thing they could not bear.”

“He told me to call him Dazar Frihet. He said that our days are freedom. All of these days, the ones our feet carry us through, any one of them we can choose to be free, we just have to be willing to make it happen. He was such a sad young man, but he wasn’t sad for himself, he was the freest person I ever knew. No, he was sad for all the people he saw who were never free. All the people walking around thinking they were free, but were bonded to so many possessions and responsibilities, so much dispassion and anger, that freedom had become a mirage, like a mythical figure or a god, something they worshiped and followed, but never truly understood.”

“I go, I go away, I walk, I wander, and everywhere I go I bear my shell with me, I remain at home in my room, among my books, I do not approach an inch nearer to Marrakech or Timbuktu. Even if I took a train, a boat, or a motor-bus, if I went to Morocco for my holiday, if I suddenly arrived at Marrakech, I should be always in my room, at home. And if I walked in the squares and in the sooks, if I gripped an Arab's shoulder, to feel Marrakech in his person - well, that Arab would be at Marrakech, not I : I should still be seated in my room, placid and meditative as is my chosen life, two thousand miles away from the Moroccan and his burnoose. In my room. Forever.”

“D'une complexion farouche et bavarde, ayant le désir de ne voir personne et le besoin de parler à quelqu'un, il se tirait d'affaire en se parlant à lui-même. Quiconque a vécu solitaire sait à quel point le monologue est dans la nature. La parole intérieure démange. Haranguer l'espace est un exutoire. Parler tout haut et tout seul, cela fait l'effet d'un dialogue avec le dieu qu'on a en soit.”