Quotes from Guillaume Apollinaire

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.

I had the courage to look backward The ghosts of my days

Sea, I am like you, filled with broken voices

It's raining my soul, it's raining, but it's raining dead eyes.

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure / Les jours s'en vont je demeure.

J'ai cueilli ce brin de bruyère L'automne est morte souviens-t'en Nous ne nous verrons plus sur terre Odeur du temps brin de bruyère Et souviens-toi que je t'attends

In this mirror, I am enclosed a live and real as you. Imagine angels and not like the reflections.

Le Chat Je souhaite dans ma maison: Une femme ayant sa raison. Un chat passant parmi les livres. Des amis en toute saison Sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.

Six mirrors keep staring at one another (Monday rue Christine)

Oui je veux vous aimer mais vous aimer à peine Et mon mal est délicieux

Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman.

It's raining my soul, it's raining, but it's raining dead eyes.

When man resolved to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. In doing this, he was practicing surrealism without knowing it.

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.

When man wanted to make a machine that would walk he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg.

Without artists, the sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed.

A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.

O mouths humanity seeks a new language Beyond the reach of grammarians.

And now comes the summer of violence And my youth is as dead as the springtime O Sun it is the time of fiery Reason.

We mean to explore kindness and its enormous silences.

You see before you a man in his right mind Worldly-wise and with access to death Having tested the sorrow of love and its ecstasies Having sometimes even astonished the professors Good with languages Having travelled a great deal Having seen battle in the Artillery and the Infantry Wounded in the head trepanned under chloroform Having lost my best friends in the butchery As much of antiquity and modernity as can be known I know

We hurry since everything hurries And I shall never not return Memories are all archaic horns Silenced by the wind.

I used to walk by the river An old book under my arm The river is the same as pain It elapses mindlessly And when will the week be over

One day One day I waited for myself I said to myself Guillaume it's time you came So I could know just who I am I who know others