Maurice Maeterlinck

In all truth might it be said that beauty is the unique aliment of our soul, for in all places does it search for beauty, and it perishes not of hunger even in the most degraded of lives. For indeed nothing of beauty can pass by and be altogether unperceived. Perhaps does it never pass by save only in our unconsciousness, but its action is no less puissant in gloom of night than by light of day; the joy it procures may be less tangible, but other difference there is none.

Every new star that is found in the sky will lend of its rays to the passions, and thoughts, and the courage, of man. Whatever of beauty we see in all that surrounds us, within us already is beautiful; whatever we find in ourselves that is great and adorable, that do we find too in others.

Our real life is not the life we live, and we feel that our deepest, nay, our most intimate thoughts are quite apart from ourselves, for we are other than our thoughts and our dreams. And it is only at special moments _ it may be by merest accident _ that we live our own life. Will the day ever dawn when we shall be what we are? _

_ it is that such of us as have loved deeply have learnt many secrets that are unknown to others; for thousands and thousands of things quiver in silence on the lips of true friendship and love, that are not to be found in the silence of other lips, to which friendship and love are unknown. _

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.

If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.

At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.

We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.

Do we not all spend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet come to pass?

To disdain today is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood.

You do well to have visions of a better life than of every day but it is the life of every day from which the elements of a better life must come.

The future is a world limited by ourselves-in it we discover only what concerns us.

What man is there that does not laboriously though all unconsciously himself fashion the sorrow that is to be the pivot of his life.

I have done what I could do in life and if I could not do better I did not deserve it. In vain I have tried to step beyond what bound me.

There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the shape of our everyday thoughts.