Quotes About Imagination

Have you ever had the experience of finding in a book some vague idea that's already occurred to you, some obscure image that comes back to you from the depths of your mind, or a perfect expression of your most subtle feelings?

Even at table she would bring her book, leafing through the pages while Charles ate and talked to her. The memory of the Vicomte always recurred in her reading. She drew comparisons between him and the invented characters. But little by little the circle whose centre he occupied widened around him, and that halo of glory he wore, straying from his face, spread itself further off, to illuminate other dreams.

The more ideas they had the more they suffered.

The only way not to be unhappy is to shut yourself up in art, and count everything else as nothing.

Rien ne vaut les souvenirs et les illusions de l'adolescence.

Szerelmes volt Léonba, s csak azért kereste a magányt, hogy kedvére gyönyörködhessen szerelmese képében. Léon személyes megjelenése zavarta ezt a kéjes ábrándozást.

The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet.

Amad el arte. De todas las mentiras es la menos mentirosa.

No se piensa en nada; las horas pasan. Uno se pasea inmovil por paises que cree ver, y su pensamiento, enlazandose a la ficcion, se recrea en los detalles o sigue el hilo de las aventuras. Se identifica con los personajes; parece que somos nosotros mismos los que participamos bajo sus pieles.

Las emociones extraordinarias producen las obras sublimes.

But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie imagined in despair of all desire. She now knew the pettiness of the passions which art exaggerated.

Elle était amoureuse de Léon, et elle recherchait la solitude, afin de pouvoir plus à l'aise se délecter en son image. La vue de sa personne troublait la volupté de cette méditation. Emma palpitait au bruit de ses pas ; puis, en sa présence, l'émotion tombait, et il ne lui restait ensuite qu'un immense étonnement qui se finissait en tristesse.

Elle se rappela les héroïnes des livres qu'elle avait lus, et la légion lyrique de ces femmes adultères se mit à chanter dans sa mémoire ...

Avrebbe voluto vivere in qualche vecchio maniero, come quelle castellane dal lungo corsetto che passavano le loro giornate sotto i trifogli delle ogive, col gomito sulla pietra e il mento appoggiato sulla mano, a veder arrivare, dall'estremo orizzonte della campagna, un cavaliere dalla piuma bianca galoppante su un cavallo nero!

En vez de desviar su imaginación de él, aún más se aferraba a su recuerdo, excitándose en el dolor y buscando cuantas ocasiones se presentaban para padecerlo.

You ask me whether the Orient is up to what I imagined it to be. Yes, it is; and more than that, it extends far beyond the narrow idea I had of it. I have found, clearly delineated, everything that was hazy in my mind. Facts have taken the place of suppositions - so excellently so that it is often as though I were suddenly coming upon old forgotten dreams. Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

All these great artists burn the candle at both ends; they require a dissolute life, that suits the imagination to some extent.

For you have doubtless done as I did at the age of fifteen, you have once thought you were in love with that burning and frenzied love of the kind you've seen in books, whereas all you were suffering from was just a slight scratch on the epidermis of your heart left by that iron claw called passion, and you were blowing with all the strength of your imagination on that modest fire that was barely even alight.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself, but to move in an entire universe of your own creation.

Er träumte sich sein Pariser Zimmer aus. Dort wollte er das Leben eines Bohémien führen. Gitarre wollte er spielen lernen, einen Schlafrock tragen, dazu ein Samtbarett und Hausschuhe aus blauem Plüsch. Und über dem Kamin sollten zwei gekreuzte Floretts hängen, ein Totenschädel darüber und die Gitarre darunter. Wundervoll!

BALLOONS – With balloons we will end up going to the moon. We shan't be able to navigate them any time soon.

Perciò rinunciava al flauto, ai sentimenti esaltati, all'immaginazione; poiché ogni borghese, nel calore della gioventù, almeno per un giorno, per un minuto, si è sentito capace d'immense passioni, di grandi imprese. Il più mediocre dei libertini ha sognato sultane; ogni notaio porta in sé i relitti di un poeta.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horse, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.

No se piensa en nada –continuaba él–, las horas pasan. Uno recorre sin moverse países que cree estar viendo, y el pensamiento, siguiendo a la ficción, se recrea en los detalles o sigue el hilo de las aventuras. Se identifica con los personajes y parece que es uno mismo quien palpita bajo sus ropas.