George Sand

“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.”

“I'm not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love, but I love strongly, exclusive, stedfasty.”

“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.”

“One is happy 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.”

“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.”

“[I]t is that we are too apt to despise what appears to be neither good nor beautiful, and thus we lose what is helpful and salutary.”

“No place is ugly to those who understand the virtues and sweetness of everything that God has made.”

“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.”

“In times when evil comes because men misunderstand and hate one another, it is the mission of the artist to praise sweetness, confidence, and friendship, and so to remind men, hardened or discouraged, that pure morals, tender sentiments, and primitive justice still exist, or at least can exist, in this world.”

“Let us leave political questions to be decided by the powers concerned," Sir Ralph would say, "as we have adopted a form of government which forbids us to discuss our interests ourselves. If a nation is responsible for the faults of its legislature, what one can you find that is guiltier than yours?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.”

“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.”

“Admiration and familiarity are strangers.”

“Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le compliqué.”

“Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy.”

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

“When they are among us cats are angels”

“The maid told him that a girl and a child had come looking for him, but since she didn't know them, she hadn't cared to ask them in, and had told them to go on to Mers."Why didn't you let them in?" asked Germain angrily. "People must be very suspicious in this part of the world, if they won't open the front door to a neighbor.""Well, naturally!" replied the maid. "In a house as rich as this, you have to keep a close watch on things. While the master's away I'm responsible for everything, and I can't just open the door to anyone at all.""That's a mean way to live," said Germain; "I'd rather be poor than live in fear like that. Good-bye to you, miss, and good-bye to this horrible country of yours!”

“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.”

“The capacity of passion is both cruel and divine”

“...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.)”

“The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning.”

“Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.(La vie ressemble plus souvent à un roman qu'un roman ne ressemble à la vie.)”

“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.”

“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”

“Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect”

“It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. Thereverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.”

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

“¡Dejadme escapar de la mentirosa y criminal ilusión de la felicidad!Dadme trabajo, cansancio, dolor y entusiasmo.”

“Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.”

“There are no more thorough prudes than those who have some little secret to hide.”

“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”

“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.”

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

“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.(Il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé.)”