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Quote by Pierre de Ronsard

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Sonnets Pour Helene

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Author

Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585) was the leading poet of the French Renaissance and the foremost figure of La Pléiade, the influential group of seven French poets. Born into a noble family in Vendee, he served as court poet to King Charles IX. Ronsard is best known for his love poetry collection "Les Amours" and the epic "Franciade." He is celebrated as the father of French poetry, having established the French sonnet form and championed the development of a national French literary language inspired by classical Greek and Roman traditions. more

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“Imagine un peu : tu es conscient, mais pas vivant. Tu vois et même tu comprends, mais tu ne vis pas. Tu as le nez collé au carreau. Tu reconnais les choses, mais ça ne fait pas de toi un vivant. On peut mourir et durer encore. Parfois, ce qui t'observe derrière les yeux de quelqu'un est mort dans l'enfance. C'est mort et c'est là, et ça regarde toujours. Ce n'est pas simplement le corps, sans rien dedans, qui te regarde ; non, il y a encore quelque chose à l'intérieur qui est mort depuis longtemps mais continue à regarder au-dehors, et regarde et regarde encore sans pouvoir s'arrêter.”

“The past may or may not be a foreign country. It may morph or lie still, but its capital is always Regret, and what flushes through it is the grand canal of unfledged desires that feed into an archipelago of tiny might-have-beens that never really happened but aren't unreal for not happening and might still happen though we fear they never will. And I thought of Ole Brit holding back so much, as we all do when we look back to see that the roads we've left behind or not taken have all but vanished. Regret is how we hope to back into our real lives once we find the will, the blind drive and courage, to trade in the life we're given for the life that bears our name and ours only. Regret is how we look forward to things we've long lost yet never really had. Regret is hope without conviction, I said. We're torn between regret, which is the price to pay for things not done, and remorse, which is the cost for having done them. Between one and the other, time plays all its cozy little tricks.”