Part 1

This eBook was produced by David Widger

CINQ MARS

By Alfred de Vigny

A cat is a very fine animal. It is a drawing-room tiger

A queen's country is where her throne is

Adopted fact is always better composed than the real one

Advantage that a calm temper gives one over men

All that he said, I had already thought

Always the first word which is the most difficult to say

Ambition is the saddest of all hopes

Art is the chosen truth

Artificialities of style of that period

Artistic Truth, more lofty than the True

As Homer says, "smiling under tears"

Assume with others the mien they wore toward him

But how avenge one's self on silence?

Dare now to be silent when I have told you these things

Daylight is detrimental to them

Deny the spirit of self-sacrifice

Difference which I find between Truth in art and the True in fac

Doubt, the greatest misery of love

Friendship exists only in independence and a kind of equality

Happy is he who does not outlive his youth

Hatred of everything which is superior to myself

He did not blush to be a man, and he spoke to men with force

Hermits can not refrain from inquiring what men say of them

History too was a work of art

I have burned all the bridges behind me

In pitying me he forgot himself

In every age we laugh at the costume of our fathers

In times like these we must see all and say all

It is not now what it used to be

It is too true that virtue also has its blush

Lofty ideal of woman and of love

Men are weak, and there are things which women must accomplish

Money is not a common thing between gentlemen like you and me

Monsieur, I know that I have lived too long

Neither idealist nor realist

Never interfered in what did not concern him

No writer had more dislike of mere pedantry

Offices will end by rendering great names vile

Princes ought never to be struck, except on the head

Princesses ceded like a town, and must not even weep

Principle that art implied selection

Recommended a scrupulous observance of nature

Remedy infallible against the plague and against reserve

Reproaches are useless and cruel if the evil is done

Should be punished for not having known how to punish

So strongly does force impose upon men

Tears for the future

The great leveller has swung a long scythe over France

The most in favor will be the soonest abandoned by him

The usual remarks prompted by imbecility on such occasions

These ideas may serve as opium to produce a calm

They tremble while they threaten

They have believed me incapable because I was kind

They loved not as you love, eh?

This popular favor is a cup one must drink

This was the Dauphin, afterward Louis XIV

True talent paints life rather than the living

Truth, I here venture to distinguish from that of the True

Urbain Grandier

What use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example

Woman is more bitter than death, and her arms are like chains

Yes, we are in the way here

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