Quotes from George Sand

Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le compliqué.

Autumn is a melancholy and graceful andante, that prepares beautifully solemn adagio of winter

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

She discovered that a great deal of the suffering in this world is due not so much to original sin, but to a kind of original stupidity, an unimaginative, stubborn stupidity.

I]t is that we are too apt to despise what appears to be neither good nor beautiful, and thus we lose what is helpful and salutary.

And I refused to make any sacrifices; for nothing on earth seemed more valuable than my peace of mind, my pleasure and my acclaim.

La vie ressemble plus souvent à un roman qu'un roman ne ressemble à la vie. (Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.)

Then she had doubts about the reality of her situation and wondered if her imminent departure was not the illusion of a dream.

J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible. (I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.) [Letter to Jules Boucoiran, 4 March 1831]

Weak people live in perpetual fear and foreboding.

Guard well within yourself that treasure - kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

Let us leave political questions to be decided by the powers concerned, Sir Ralph would say, as we have adopted a form of government which forbids us to discuss our interests ourselves. If a nation is responsible for the faults of its legislature, what one can you find that is guiltier than yours?

I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination.

I don't know why, but any thought of the future upsets me intolerably. So I had to turn and look back at certain aspects of the past, and only then did I recover my calm. I thought of our friendship and was overcome by guilt at having allowed so much bitterness to invade my wretched heart. I recalled the joys and sorrows we had shared. Both are so dear to me that I began to sob like a woman when I remembered them.

Dejadme escapar de la mentirosa y criminal ilusión de la felicidad! Dadme trabajo, cansancio, dolor y entusiasmo.

You must write for all those who are thirsty to read and who can enjoy a good reading.

I'm not sure that there's anything more horrible than staying in a furnished room in Paris, especially

Between genius and madness there is often not the thickness of a hair.

The constant winds of petty appetite dissipate the power of response.

The contemplation of Mont Blanc's unchanging summits for three or four days last month, the sight of that eternal snow, immaculate, sublime in its whiteness and calm, was enough to restore to my soul a serenity it had not known for a long time.

Le parfum de l'âme, c'est le souvenir. C'est la partie la plus délicate, la plus suave du coeur, qui se détache pour embrasser un autre coeur et le suivre partout. L'affection d'un absent n'est plus qu'un parfum, mais qu'il est doux.

Talent , will , genius are natural phenomena like the lake , the volcano , the mountain , the wind , the star , the cloud .

There are moments of exaltation and ecstasy when our thoughts become, in a way, more pure, more subtle, more ethereal. These rare moments raise us up so high, carry us so far out of ourselves, that when we fall back to earth we lose the consciousness and the memory of that intellectual intoxication. Who can understand the anchorite's mysterious visions? Who can relate the dreams of the poet before his emotion has cooled so that he can write them down for us?

When mental [illness] increases until it reaches the danger point, do not exhaust yourself by efforts to trace back to original causes. Better accept them as inevitable and save your strength to fight against the effects.