Marguerite Yourcenar (née Marguerite de Crayencour) / 1903–1987 / Belgium / Poet, Short Story Writer, Novelist, Essayist, Translator, Memoirist
Birthplace
The true birthplace is the one where we first cast an intelligent eye upon ourselves; my first fatherlands were books.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Common Sense
. . . in every contest between fanaticism and common sense, the latter rarely has the upper hand.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Courage
All of us would be transformed if we had the courage to be what we are.
Alexis (1929).
Death
Little soul, tender and floating soul, companion of my body, which was your host, you are going to descend into the pale, hard, and naked regions where you will have to give up the games of days gone by. For one more moment, let us look together at the familiar shores, at the objects which no doubt we will never see again . . . Let us try to enter into death with open eyes . . .
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Destiny
I believe that a stroke of madness is almost always required to construct a destiny.
Les yeux ouverts: Entretiens avec Matthieu Galey [Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey] (1980).
He had arrived at that moment in life, different for each person, where the human being gives in to his personal daemon, or genius, and follows a mysterious law which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Freedom
One is not free so long as one desires, so long as one wants, so long as one fears, so long, perhaps, as one lives.
L’Œuvre au noir [Opus nigrum; alchemical term] (1968).
Governing
I do not despise men. If I did, I would have no right, nor any reason, to try to govern them. I know them to be vain, ignorant, greedy, anxious, capable of almost anything to succeed, to shine, even in their own eyes, or simply to avoid suffering. I know. I am like them, at least from time to time, or I could have been.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Greek
Everything that is best that men have said has been said in Greek.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Happiness
Every happiness is a masterpiece. The smallest mistake falsifies it, the least hesitation transforms it, the slightest heaviness ruins it, the tiniest foolishness renders it imbecilic.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Hope
The unfortunate thing is that, because wishes sometimes come true, the agony of hoping is perpetuated.
Denier du rêve [Dream Coin] (1934).
Human Heart
May it please him who perhaps Is to expand the human heart until it equals all of life.
L’Œuvre au noir [Opus nigrum; alchemical term] (1968); inscription on Yourcenar’s tombstone.
Humanity
A man who reads, or who thinks, or who calculates, belongs to the species and not to a sex. In his best moments, he eludes even the human.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Innocence
We believe ourselves pure as long as we despise what we do not desire.
Alexis (1929).
Laws
Our civil laws will never be supple enough to adapt to the immense and ever-changing variety of facts. They change more slowly than customs. Although laws are dangerous when they lag behind customs, they are more dangerous still when they undertake to advance ahead of them.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Leisure
Moments of free time. Each well-regulated life has some, and whoever does not know how to find them does not know how to live.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Libraries
I often think of the beautiful inscription that Plotinus had placed at the entrance to the library he established in the middle of Trajan’s Forum: “Hospital of the Soul.”
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
To found libraries is construct still more public granaries, to build up reserves against a winter of the spirit . . .
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Love
One day, God will erase from men’s hearts all the laws except love.
L’Œuvre au noir [Opus nigrum; alchemical term] (1968).
I did not love less; I loved more. But the weight of love, like that of an arm tenderly stretched across a chest, little by little became heavy to bear.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Memory
The memory of most men is an abandoned cemetery where lie the unsung dead they have ceased to cherish.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Music
Every silence is composed of nothing but unspoken words. Perhaps that is why I became a musician. Someone had to express this silence, make it render up all the sadness it contained, make it sing as it were.
Alexis (1929).
Purpose of Life
To perfect oneself is the principal goal of living.
Les yeux ouverts: Entretiens avec Matthieu Galey [Open Eyes: Conversations with Matthieu Galey] (1980).
Routine
I knew that good and bad are both a matter of routine, that the temporary prolongs itself, that what is outside infiltrates the inside, and that the mask finally becomes the face itself.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Scientific Spirit
The skirmishes with the theologians had had their charm, but he knew well that no lasting accord exists between those who seek, ponder, and dissect and pride themselves on being capable of thinking tomorrow other than they do today, and those who accept the Faith, or declare that they do, and oblige their fellow men to do the same, on pain of death.
L’Œuvre au noir [Opus nigrum; alchemical term] (1968).
Stars
It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present.
Alexis (1929).
Suicide
I won’t kill myself. The dead are so quickly forgotten.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Travel
Who would be so foolish as to die without having made at least the tour of his prison?
L’Œuvre au noir [Opus nigrum; alchemical term] (1968).
True Birth
Nothing is slower than the true birth of a man.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Understanding Human Beings
Like everyone else, I have had access to only three means of evaluating human existence: the study of myself, the most difficult and the most dangerous, but also the most fruitful method; observation of men, who manage most often to hide their secrets from us or else to make us believe they have secrets; books, with their particular errors of perspective, which rise up from between the lines.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Vegetarianism
At this period of his existence, meat and blood, entrails, and all that had ever lived and breathed disgusted him as food, for an animal dies in pain just as man does, and it repelled him to be digesting death’s agony.
L’Œuvre au noir [Opus nigrum; alchemical term] (1968).
Virtues
Our great mistake is to try to obtain from each individual the virtues he does not possess and to neglect to cultivate the ones he does.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Wisdom
There is more than one kind of wisdom, and all of them are essential to the world. It is not a bad thing that they should take turns.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).
Words and Gestures
The written word has taught me to hear the human voice, just as the grand, motionless attitudes of statues have taught me to appreciate gestures.
Mémoires d’Hadrien [Memoirs of Hadrian] (1951).