Quotes from Alfred de Vigny

What is a great life if not a youthful idea executed by a man of mature years.

Poetry is the disease of the brain.

History is a novel for which the people is the author.

I love the sound of the horn, at night, in the depth of the woods.

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

God! how sad is the sound of the horn deep in the woods!

But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity.

I [Nature] am called a mother, but I am a grave.

History is a novel for which the people is the author.

Just as we descend into our consciences to judge of actions which our minds can not weigh, can we not also search in ourselves for the feeling which gives birth to forms of thought, always vague and cloudy?

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.

What is a great life? It is the dreams of youth realised in old age.

Do you know that charming part of our country which has been called the garden of France - that spot where, amid verdant plains watered by wide streams, one inhales the purest air of heaven?

I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words

I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance

The loveliest Muse in the world does not feed her owner; these girls make fine mistresses but terrible wives

Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch the other perish?

To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances; and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fame

The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds

Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand; for there are many ways of knowing the same thing

Those intellectuals are our natural enemies; the only kind who are worth anything are the musicians and the dancers: they don't insult anybody with their performances, and they neither sing nor dance politics. So I like them; but don't let me hear a word about the rest

Observe this fact: in the history of mankind, every ruler who has lacked personal greatness has been forced to compensate for the deficiency by setting up the executioner at his right hand like a guardian angel

One is always a good master when one isn't the master