Best 105 quotes of Alphonse De Lamartine on MyQuotes

Love of country produces among men such examples as Cincinnatus, Alfred, Washington--pure, unselfish, symmetrical; among women, Vittoria Colonna, Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Jeanne Darc--romantic, devoted, marvelous.

Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless. He speeds; we pass away!

Man is born barbarous--he is ransomed from the condition of beasts only by being cultivated.

Modesty and dew love the shade.

My dog! the difference between thee and me knows only our Creator.

My mother was convinced, and on this head I have retained her firm belief, that to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state; that it is one of those curses cast upon man either by his fall, or by the obduracy of his own perversity.

Nature has given women two painful but heavenly gifts, which distinguish them, and often raise them above human nature,--compassion and enthusiasm. By compassion, they devote themselves; by enthusiasm they exalt themselves.

Newspapers will ultimately engross all literature.

Philosophy is the rational expression of genius.

Photography is better than art. It is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates with the sun.

Poetry has been the guardian angel of humanity in all ages.

Poetry is the morning dream of great minds.

Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.

Providence conceals itself in the details of human affairs, but becomes unveiled in the generalities of history.

Radicalism is but the desperation of logic.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.

Religions are not proved, are not demonstrated, are not established, are not overthrown by logic! They are of all the mysteries of nature and the human mind, the most mysterious and most inexplicable; they are of instinct and not of reason.

Republicanism and ignorance are in bitter antagonism.

Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet.

Sentiment is the poetry of the imagination.

Shall not this bygone Eden that we knew In our Eternal Life have shape and hue? For where Time is not shall not all Time be? In that calm breast whereto our souls are cleaving Shall we not find our loved ones beyond grieving About the hearth-stone of Eternity?

Silence and simplicity obtrude on no one, but are yet two unequaled attractions in woman.

Silence,--the applause of real and durable impressions.

Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.

Soul of the universe, Sire, God, Creator, Lord, I believe in Thee, 'neath all these names: And without having need to hear thy word, In the sky's brow my glorious creed I trace.

The death of a man's wife is like cutting down an ancient oak that has long shaded the family mansion. Henceforth the glare of the world, with its cares and vicissitudes falls upon the old widower's heart, and there is nothing to break their force, or shield him from the full weight of misfortune. It is as if his right hand were withered; as if one wing of his angel was broken, and every movement that he made brought him to the ground.

The founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of o­ne spiritual empire, that is Muhammed. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?

The greatness of a popular character is less according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his time. Fanatics do not select the cleverest but the most fanatical leaders as was evidenced in the choice of Robespierre by the French Jacobins, and in that of Cromwell by the English Puritans.

The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.

The loss of a mother is always keenly felt, even if her health be such as to incapacitate her from taking an active part in the care of the family. She is the sweet rallying-point for affection, obedience, and a thousand tendernesses. Dreary the blank when she is withdrawn!

The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.

The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.

The People will not allow themselves to be changed into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when they are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to liberty are stolen from them.

The photographer will never replace the painter; one is a man, the other a machine. Let us compare them no longer. (1848)

There are places and climates, seasons and hours, with their outward circumstance, so much in harmony with certain impressions of the heart, that Nature and the soul of man appear to be parts of one vast whole.

The reason that women are so much more sociable than men is because they act more from the heart than the intellect.

There is a name hidden in the shadow of my soul, where I read it night and day and no other eye sees it.

There is a woman at the begining of all great things.

Thou makest the man, O Sorrow!--yes, the whole man,--as the crucible gold.

Time is a great ocean which, like the other ocean, overflows with our remains.

...to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state

To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.

Too much I've seen, and felt, and lov'd in life, Living I come to seek Lethaean calm; Let me, fair scenes! forget all worldly strife, Oblivion solely is my bosom's balm.

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.

True love is the ripe fruit of a lifetime.

Unanimity is the mistress of strength.

Virginity is the poetry, not the reality, of life.

Void of freedom, what would virtue be?

We are earth's children, and life is the same in sap as in blood; all that the earth, our mother, feels and expresses to the eye by her form and aspect, in melancholy or in splendor, finds an echo within us.

We cannot have two hearts, one for the animals and one for men. In cruelty towards the former and cruelty to the latter there is no difference but in the victim.