Top quotes by George Sand

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. Votes: 41

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness. Votes: 25

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life. Votes: 22

Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm: it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument. Votes: 21

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness. Votes: 12

The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul. Votes: 11

One approaches the journey's end. But the end is a goal, not a catastrophe. Votes: 10

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart. Votes: 10

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age. Votes: 10

I see upon their noble brows the seal of the Lord, for they were born kings of the earth far more truly than those who possess it only from having bought it. Votes: 10

We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire. Votes: 9

One changes from day to day, and... after a few years have passed one has completely altered. Votes: 8

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession. Votes: 8

Party politics is now a real farce. Votes: 8

Nowadays it seems that moral education is no longer considered necessary. Attention is wholly centered on intelligence, while the heart life is ignored. Votes: 8

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. Votes: 7

Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius. Votes: 7

Every historian discloses a new horizon. Votes: 7

I have no enthusiasm for nature which the slightest chill will not instantly destroy. Votes: 6

It is sad, no doubt, to exhaust one's strength and one's days in cleaving the bosom of this jealous earth, which compels us to wring from it the treasures of its fertility, when a bit of the blackest and coarsest bread is, at the end of the day's work, the sole recompense and the sole profit attaching to so arduous a toil. Votes: 5

Admiration and familiarity are strangers. Votes: 5

... everyone's free to embark on either a great clipper or a little fishing boat. An artist is an explorer who oughtn't to shrink from anything: it doesn't matter whether he goes to the left or the right -- his goal sanctifies all. Votes: 5

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one's talent, and one's inner happiness. Votes: 5

Writing a journal means that facing your ocean you are afraid to swim across it, so you attempt to drink it drop by drop. Votes: 5

Humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation, which is one of the most passionate forms of love. Votes: 4

And I refused to make any sacrifices; for nothing on earth seemed more valuable than my peace of mind, my pleasure and my acclaim. Votes: 3

Ever since time began the world has seemed stupid to those who aren't stupid themselves. It was to avoid that annoyance that I became stupid myself, as fast as ever I could. Sheer egoism, no doubt. Votes: 3

If they are ignorant, they are despised, if learned, mocked. In love they are reduced to the status of courtesans. As wives they are treated more as servants than as companions. Men do not love them: they make use of them, they exploit them, and expect, in that way, to make them subject to the law of fidelity. Votes: 3

Fame and admiration weigh not a feather in the scale against friendship and love, for the heart languishes all the same. Votes: 2

The marriage vow is an absurdity imposed by society. Votes: 2

I regard as a mortal sin not only the lying of the senses in matters of love, but also the illusion which the senses seek to create where love is only partial. I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one's being, or else live, come what may, a life of complete chastity. Votes: 0

Weeds are omnipresent; errors are to be found in the heart of the most lovable. Votes: 0

Unrequited love is as different from the mutual love as the error from the truth. Votes: 0

It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides. Votes: 0

It is extraordinary how music sends one back into memories of the past ... Votes: 0

All your trouble comes from lack of exercise. A man of your strength and constitution ought always to have kept physically active. So don't jibe at the very wise advice that sentences you to one hour's walk a day. You imagine the work of the mind takes place only in the brain; but you're much mistaken. It takes place in the legs as well. Votes: 0

Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure. Votes: 0

Vanity is the quicksand of reason. Votes: 0

You don't have to write to me if you don't feel like it. There's no real friendship without absolute freedom. Votes: 0

No place is ugly to those who understand the virtues and sweetness of everything that God has made. Votes: 0

God abandons only those who abandon themselves, and whoever has the courage to shut up his sorrow within his own heart is stronger to fight against it than he who complains. Votes: 0

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. Votes: 0

One is happy as a result of one's own efforts once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience. Votes: 0

Nature alone can speak to our intelligence an imperishable language, never changing, because it remains within the bounds of eternal truth and of what is absolutely noble and beautiful. Votes: 0

I'm beginning to believe that there are angels disguised as men who pass themselves off as such and who inhabit the earth for a while to console and lift up with them toward heaven the poor, exhausted and saddened souls who were ready to perish here below. Votes: 0

One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness-simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain. Votes: 0

Life is a slate where all our sins are written; from time to time we rub the sponge of repentance over it so we can begin sinning again. Votes: 0

Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life. Votes: 0

Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile. Votes: 0

Age continually alters the faces of those who think or study, and so their portraits differ from one another and don't even resemble them for very long. I dream so much and live so little that I'm sometimes only three years old. But the next day I'm three hundred, if the dream has been sombre. Votes: 0

nature has not changed. The night is still unsullied, the stars still twinkle, and the wild thyme smells as sweetly now as it did then ... We may be afflicted and unhappy, but no one can take from us the sweet delight which is nature's gift to those who love her and her poetry. Votes: 0

The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women. Votes: 0

Time is always wanting to me, and I cannot meet with a single day when I am nut hurried along, driven to by wits'-end by urgent work, business to attent do or some service to render. Votes: 0

Young love needs dangers and barriers to nourish it. Votes: 0

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores? Votes: 0

No one makes a revolution by himself; and there are some revolutions which humanity accomplishes without quite knowing how, because it is everybody who takes them in hand. Votes: 0

The prayers of a lover are more imperious than the menaces of the whole world. Votes: 0

Women love always: when earth slips from them, they take refuge in heaven. Votes: 0

No human creature can give orders to love. Votes: 0

... love is too delicate a flower to rise again when one has trampled it under foot. Votes: 0

... the progress of the language has caused us to lose many old treasures. It is thus with all progress, and one must make the best of it. Votes: 0

... what is there over which the incomparable beauty of childhood would not triumph? Votes: 0

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply. Votes: 0

...Je n'ai pas cessé de l'être si c'est d'être jeune que d'aimer toujours !... L'humanité n'est pas un vain mot. Notre vie est faite d'amour, et ne plus aimer c'est ne plus vivre." (I have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving... Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is made of love, and to love no longer is to live no longer.) Votes: 0

[Failure is hard initially because] One knows what one has lost, but not what one may find [and learn from that failure]! Votes: 0

A child motivated by competitive ideals will grow into a man without conscience, shame, or true dignity. Votes: 0

A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images. Votes: 0

A day will come when everything in my life will be changed, when I shall do good to others, when some one will love me, when I shall give my whole heart to the man whi gives ne his; neanwhile, U will suffer in silence and keep my love as a reward for him who shall set me free. Votes: 0

A man is not a wall, whose stones are crushed upon the road; or a pipe, whose fragments are thrown away at a street corner. The fragments of an intellect are always good. Votes: 0

a woman, when she is heroic, is not heroic by halves. Votes: 0

a woman's heart has no wrinkles. Votes: 0

Ah! that Senate is a world of ice and darkness! It votes the destruction of peoples as the simplest and wisest thing; for its members themselves are moribund. Votes: 0

almost all novels are love stories. Votes: 0

Anything we destroy in ourselves we destroy in others. Our falls lower others and throw them down; we owe it to our fellows to keep upright, in order that they too may keep their feet. Votes: 0

Art belongs to all times and to all countries; its special benefit is precisely to be still living when everything else seems dying; that is why Providence shields it from too personal or too general passions, and grants it a patient and persevering organization, durable sensibility, and the contemplative sense in which lies invincible faith. Votes: 0

Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for. Votes: 0

art speaks only to the mind, whereas nature speaks to all the faculties ... Votes: 0

As far as I am concerned I would rather spend the rest of my life in prison than marry again. Votes: 0

Be prudent, and if you hear, * * * some insult or some threat, * * * have the appearance of not hearing it. Votes: 0

Believe in no other God than the one who insists on justice and equality among men. Votes: 0

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it. Votes: 0

death must no longer be either the penalty for prosperity or the consolation of misery. God did not destine it to be either the punishment or the compensation for life ... Votes: 0

Discouragement seizes us only when we can no longer count on chance. Votes: 0

Experience is always a trustworthy guide; it may not tell you everything, but it never lies. Votes: 0

faith is like love; when you want it you can't find it, and you find it when you least expect it. Votes: 0

fretting at trouble only doubles it. Votes: 0

God has written in the law of nature that when two people are joined in love or friendship, one must always give his heart more perfectly than the other. Votes: 0

Gossiping is the plague of little towns. Votes: 0

Happiness lies in the consciousness we have of it. Votes: 0

Heavens! whatever possesses us, here below, that we mutually torment ourselves, sourly reproach our mutual faults, and mercilessly condemn all that is not cut according to our pattern? Votes: 0

Humanity is outraged in me and with me. Votes: 0

I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one. Votes: 0

I know that I have found fulfillment. I have an object in life, a task ... a passion. Votes: 0

I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the waters. I love also absolute, profound silence, and, in short, I love everything that is around me, no matter where I am. Votes: 0

I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination. Votes: 0

I needn't tell you that success and failure prove nothing - the whole thing is a lottery. It's pleasant to succeed; but for a philosophic mind it oughtn't to be very upsetting to fail. Votes: 0

I saw in 'the wandering Jew' the personification of the Jewish people, exiled in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, they are once again extremely rich, owing to their unfailing rude greediness and their indefatigable activity. With their hard-heartedness that they extend toward people of other faiths and races they are at the point of making themselves kings of the world. This people can thank its obstinacy that France will be Judized within fifty years. Already some wise Jews prophesy this frankly. Votes: 0

I say, I believe, that one must love with all of one's being... Votes: 0

I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men. . . . People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off. Votes: 0

I would rather believe that God did not exist than believe that he was indifferent. Votes: 0

If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both. Votes: 0

I'm not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love, but I love strongly, exclusive, stedfasty. Votes: 0

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Wikis give us a place where anyone who is kind, thoughtful and intelligent can come and join us in building a better and more rational world. Jimmy Wales Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness. Votes: 0

Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless - one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her. Votes: 0

It is always the best friends who are neglected and ignored. Votes: 0

It is high time that we had lights that are not incendiary torches. Votes: 0

It is love, not faith, that moves mountains. Votes: 0

It is quite wrong to think of old age as a downward slope. On the contrary, one climbs higher and higher with the ad-vancing years, and that, too with sur-prising strides. Brain-work comes as easily to the old as physical exertion to the child. One is moving, it is true, towards the end of life, but that end is now a goal, and not a reef in which the vessel may be dashed. Votes: 0

It seems to me that the earth belongs to God who made it and entrusted it to men as a perpetual home. But it cannot have been part of His plan that some men should be ill with overfeeding and that others should die of starvation. No matter what anyone can say they cannot prevent me from feeling sad and angry when I see a beggar crying at a rich man's door. Votes: 0

Know how to replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the happiness that may be wanting to yourself Votes: 0

Learned women are ridiculed because they put to shame unlearned men. Votes: 0

Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views. Votes: 0

Life is a succession of afflictions for the heart. Votes: 0

Life isn't always easy but so long as we have hope that we will find someone to help us through the darkness things will always get better. When we find that person, life suddenly explodes and darkness turns into a riot of colour. We're always looking for someone, what we need to remember is that someone is out there looking for us too. Votes: 0

living for oneself is a bad thing. The keenest intellectual pleasure comes from being able to return to the self after being absent from it for a spell. But living all the time inside the self, that most tyrannical, demanding and capricious of companions - no, one shouldn't do it. Votes: 0

Love without reverence and enthusiasm is only friendship. Votes: 0

Lying, like license, has its degrees. Votes: 0

Masterpieces are only lucky attempts. Votes: 0

My strength has not equaled my mad ambition. I have remained obscure; I have done worse -- I have touched success, and allowed it to escape me. Votes: 0

Nature distributes her favors unequally. Votes: 0

No human being can control love, and no one is to blame either for feeling it or for losing it. What alone degrades a woman is falsehood. Votes: 0

No one makes a revolution by himself. Votes: 0

No religion can be built on force. Votes: 0

Not to love is to cease to live. Votes: 0

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self when one does not lack wit and is familiar with all the niceties of language. Language is a prostitute queen who descends and rises to all roles. Disguises herself, arrays herself in fine apparel, hides her head and effaces herself; an advocate who has an answer for everything, who has always foreseen everything, and who assumes a thousand forms in order to be right. The most honorable of men is he who thinks best and acts best, but the most powerful is he who is best able to talk and write Votes: 0

Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect Votes: 0

O heart! love is thy bane and thy antidote. Votes: 0

Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves. Votes: 0

One never knows how much a family may grow; and when a hive is too full, and it is necessary to form a new swarm, each one thinks of carrying away his own honey. Votes: 0

One wastes so much time, one is so prodigal of life, at twenty! Our days of winter count for double. That is the compensation of the old. Votes: 0

Our work can never be better than we are ourselves. Votes: 0

Punctuation has its own philosophy, just as style does, although not as language does. Style is a good understanding of language, punctuation is a good understanding of style. Votes: 0

Sex is the most respectable and holy thing in all creation, the most serious act in life. Votes: 0

Simplicity is the essence of the great, the true, and the beautiful in art. Votes: 0

Simplicity, a delicate silence about oneself, increases their worth and makes one love those whom one admires. Votes: 0

Some say that cats are devils, but they behave badly only when they are alone. When they are among us cats are angels. Votes: 0

Sorrow makes us very good or very bad. Votes: 0

Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud. Votes: 0

The brain is a tool that gets rusty without constant, albeit moderate, exercise. Votes: 0

The capacity of passion is both cruel and divine Votes: 0

The cigar is the perfect complement to an elegant lifestyle. Votes: 0

The intellect seeks, the heart finds. Votes: 0

The lessons of experience are always learned too late. Votes: 0

The life of great geniuses is nothing but a sublime storm. Votes: 0

the mind has no sex ... Votes: 0

The more you lose the right to be jealous, the more so you become! Votes: 0

The most honest of men is the one who thinks and acts best, but the most powerful is the one who writes and speaks best. Votes: 0

The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning. Votes: 0

The prayers of a lover are more imperious than the menaces of the whole world Votes: 0

The publication of a book only brings very paltry results to its author. Votes: 0

The smoke of glory is not worth the smoke of a pipe. Votes: 0

The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes... Votes: 0

There are no more thorough prudes than those who have some little secret to hide. Votes: 0

There is but on virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self. Votes: 0

These tears do me good, they have watered the parched place; perhaps my heart will grow again there! Votes: 0

To be made evident, truth must be sought for; for of itself it is slow to appear, and between ourselves and God the obstacles are so many! Votes: 0

To eat together is one of the greatest promoters of intimacy. It is the satisfaction in common of a material necessity of existence, and if you seek a loftier meaning in it, it is a communion ... Votes: 0

To forgive a fault in another is more sublime than to be faultless one's self. Votes: 0

Travelling is like a novel: it's what happens that counts. Votes: 0

we do not die of anguish, we live on. We continue to suffer. We drink the cup drop by drop. Votes: 0

We do not precisely enjoy liberty at the Figaro. M. de Latouche, our worthy director (ah! you should know the fellow), is always hanging over us, cutting, pruning, right or wrong, imposing upon us his whims, his aberrations, his fancies, and we have to write as he bids ... Votes: 0

We must have a passion in life. Votes: 0

We must love stupid people better than ourselves; are they not the really unfortunate ones of this world? Do not people without taste and without ideal grow constantly weary, rejoicing in nothing, and being quite useless here below? Votes: 0

Weakness is oftentimes so palpable as to be equivalent to wickedness. Votes: 0

When I tried to draw near, you dissolved into air before my lips could touch you.... Votes: 0

When mental sickness increases until it reaches the danger point, do not exhaust yourself by efforts to trace back to original causes. Better accept them as inevitable and save your strength to fight against the effects. Votes: 0

When they are among us cats are angels Votes: 0

Where love is absent there can be no woman. Votes: 0

Where there is no longer love, there is no longer anything. Votes: 0

Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy. Votes: 0

Years do not always make age. Votes: 0

You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing. Votes: 0

You may impose silence upon me, but you can not prevent me from thinking. Votes: 0

You see what stupid folk my publishers are; but they are all alike. Votes: 0

You, stupid one, who believe in laws which punish murder by murder ... Votes: 0

There is only one sex. A man and a woman are so entirely the same thing that one can scarcely understand the subtle reasons for sex distinctions with which our minds are filled. Votes: 0

The masses are still ungrateful or ignorant. They prefer murder, poisonings, and crimes generally to a literature possessed of style and feeling. Votes: 0

Celebrate within yourself that wonderful treasure . . . true kindness. Votes: 0

Vanity is the most despotic and iniquitous of masters, and I can never be the slave of my own vices. Votes: 0

Genius, whether locked up in a cell or roaming at large, is always solitary ... Votes: 0

honesty dies in selling itself. Votes: 0