Quotes from Gerard de Nerval

A serious bibliophile never lends his books. In fact he does not even read his books, for fear of wearing them out.

It is here that what I call the outpouring of dream into real life began. From that moment, everything took on a double aspect at times, and this occurred without my reason lacking logic and without my memory loosing the slightest details of what happened to me. But my actions, seemingly unconscious, were dominated by what human reason calls illusion.

I've had enough of chasing after poetry; I believe that poetry lies at one's very door or perhaps in one's very bed. I'm still a man on the run, but I shall try to stop and wait.

Even as it clouds our corporeal vision, intoxication clarifies our spiritual vision. The mind, set free from the heavy bondage of the body, flees away like a prisoner whose guard has fallen asleep, leaving the keys at the prison gate.

Illusions fall away one after another like the husks of a fruit, and that fruit is experience. It is bitter to the taste, but there is fortitude to be found in gall – forgive me my old-fashioned turns of phrase.

My brow still burns from the kiss of the queen; I have dreamed in the grotto where the siren swims . . .

In a blank wall you may well fear the blindness which sees through you and sees you through.

Les premiers instants du sommeil sont l'image de la mort...

The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile

Childhood memories surge back more vividly midway through life – like some palimpsest whose original text suddenly reappears after the manuscript has been chemically treated.

How lovely she was in her raiments of silk and levantine purple; the fabric provocatively set off the sheen of her white shoulders, which glistened with the sweat of the world. I was on the verge of giving in to the dangerous enticements of her caresses when I realized that I recognized her from an earlier encounter, back at the dawn of time.

If there is, to be sure, something more terrifying than the history of the fall of great empires, it is the history of the death of religions. Volney himself was overcome by this feeling as he visited the innumerable ruins of once-sacred buildings. The true believer may still escape from this impression, but with the inherent scepticism of our age all of us must sometime tremble to find so many dark gates opening out on to nothingness.

And then a lady in a window high, Fair-haired, dark-eyed, and dressed in ancient style... Whom, in another life, perhaps I've seen, And whom I now remember with a sigh.

The last madness I'll probably persist in is to believe myself a poet: it will be up to the critics to cure me.

En cherchant l'oeil de Dieu, je n'ai vu qu'un orbite Vaste, noir et sans fond...

I have seen so many lands vanish in my wake, torn down like stage sets. What survives of them? An image as fleeting as a dream: whatever beauties I discovered, I already knew by heart.

The name Prometheus has always caused me particular annoyance, for my breast still aches from the everlasting beak of the vulture from which Alcides set me free.

Man, free thinker! Do you imagine you alone think in this world where life is blazing forth in all things? You are free to avail yourself of the forces you command, but the universe has gone missing from your prescriptions.

J'étais si heureux de sentir mon cœur capable d'un amour nouveau !... J'empruntais, dans cet enthousiasme factice, les formules mêmes qui, si peu de temps auparavant, m'avaient servi pour peindre un amour véritable et longtemps éprouvé. La lettre partie, j'aurais voulu la retenir, et j'allais rêver dans la solitude à ce qui me semblait une profanation de mes souvenirs.

Roses blanches, tombez ! vous insultez nos Dieux, Tombez, fantômes blancs, de votre ciel qui brûle : - La sainte de l'abîme est plus sainte à mes yeux !

La belle était assise Près du ruisseau coulant, Et dans l'eau qui frétille, Baignait ses beaux pieds blancs.

c'étaient les deux moitiés d'un seul amour. L'une était l'idéal sublime, l'autre la douce réalité. Que me font maintenant tes ombrages et tes lacs, et même ton désert ?

la nature indifférente reprendra le (terrain que l'art lui disputait ; mais la soif de connaître restera éternelle, mobile de toute force et de toute activité !

Me sentía vivir en ella, y ella vivía solo para mí. Su sonrisa me llenaba de una beatitud infinita; la ondulación de su voz, tan dulce y, sin embargo, tan firmemente timbrada, me hacía vibrar de alegría y de amor.