Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, chevalier de Pratz, was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France...
life song firsts
What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?
nature temples earth
All nature is the temple; earth the altar.
lonely stars sleep
And when night, guiding her bright train of stars, Throws o'er the sleeping world her gloomy veil, Lonely amidst the desert and the darkness, Musing upon the night's calm majesty; Wrapt up in quietness, with shade and silence, My soul more closely worshippeth Thy presence; With an internal day I feel enlighten'd, And hear a voice, which biddeth me to hope.
utopia premature
Utopias are often just premature truths.
mother children eye
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.
destruction
He, who can create, abhors destruction.
too-much calm forget
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.
dream dark past
Hence life, as through a cloud, for me I see Vanish, and to the past's dark shade 'tis chas'd; As a grand image love remains to me-- Sole remnant of a dream, by morn effac'd.
believe people joy
I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did not believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at ease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me, the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say, "So much the worse for the losers!--the world is a lottery. Woe to the conquered!
flames joy association
Joy is a flame which association alone can keep alive, and which goes out unless communicated.
mystery all-things
Mystery hovers over all things here below.
photography art sun
Photography is better than art. It is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates with the sun.
taste
All our tastes are but reminiscences.
men blood giving
After his blood, that which a man can next give out of himself is a tear.