Marguerite Yourcenar

Books are not life, only its ashes.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Every invalid is a prisoner.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Any truth creates a scandal.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

All happiness is a form of innocence.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Translating is writing.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Quel bel levriero... si distese sulla mia vita (Memorie di Adriano, Saeculum Aureum)”

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Everything is too far away in the past, or mysteriously too close.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Love is a punishment. We are punished for not having been strong enough to remain alone.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

We say: mad with joy. We should say: wise with grief.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

I think still that someone wiser than I might well have remained happy till his death.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Cruelty is the luxury of those who have nothing to do, like drugs or racing stables.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Morals are a matter of private agreement; decency is of public concern.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“ A amizade é, acima de tudo, certeza - é isso o que a distingue do amor.”

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Sí, Atenas era siempre bella y no lamentaba haber impuesto disciplinas griegas a mi vida. Todo lo que poseemos de humano, de…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Un hombre que lee, que piensa o que calcula, pertenece a la especie y no al sexo; en sus mejores momentos llega…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books, and…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Mucho me costaría vivir en un mundo sin libros pero la realidad no está en ellos, puesto que no cabe entera.”

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“No sabía que el dolor contiene extraños laberintos por los cuales no había terminado de andar”

— Marguerite Yourcenar

age means nothing. If anything I feel that I'm still a child: eternity and childhood are my ages.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

He had reached that moment in life, different for each one of us, when a man abandonds himself to his demon or…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“To eat fruit is to welcome into oneself a fair living object, which is alien to us but is nourished and protected…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

And nevertheless I have loved certain of my masters, and those strangely intimate though elusive relations existing between student and teacher, and…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“This Second Century appeals to me because it was the last century, for a very long period of time, in which men…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

The landscape of my days appears to be composed, like mountainous regions, of varied materials heaped up pell-mell. There I see my…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“...and I reminded myself that the reproach of intellectualism is often directed at the most sensitive natures, those most ardently alive, those…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

This morning it occurred to me for the first time that my body, my faithful companion and friend, truer and better known…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Of all our games, love’s play is the only one which threatens to unsettle our soul, and is also the only one…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“But even the longest dedication is too short and too commonplace to honor a friendship so uncommon. When I try to define…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man's periods of felicity, his partial progress,…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Closed inside my compartment as if in a cubicle of some Egyptian tomb, I worked late into the night between New York…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

A book may lie dormant for fifty years or for two thousand years in a forgotten corner of a library, only to…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“Chabrias, ever preoccupied to offer the gods the worship due them, was disturbed by the progress of sects of this kind among…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

“We lose track of everything, and of everyone, even ourselves. The facts of my father's life are less known to me than…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Meditation upon death does not teach one how to die; it does not make the departure more easy, but ease is not…

— Marguerite Yourcenar

It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

Of all our games, love's play is the only one which threatens to unsettle the soul...

— Marguerite Yourcenar

For me, a poet is someone who is 'in contact.' Someone through whom a current is passing.

— Marguerite Yourcenar