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Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (also called Count Maeterlinck from 1932) was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was a Fleming, but wrote in French.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations".

The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. His plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement.


“Besides, I myself have now for a long time ceased to look for anything more beautiful in this world, or more interesting, than the truth; or at least than the effort one is able to make towards the truth.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Evităm să ne gândim la moarte până când nu mai avem forța, n-aș spune, de a gândi, ci chiar de a respira.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“As soon as we put something into words, we devalue it in a strange way. We think we have plunged into the depths of the abyss, and when we return to the surface the drop of water on our pale fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it comes. We delude ourselves that we have discovered a wonderful treasure trove, and when we return to the light of day we find that we have brought back only false stones and shards of glass; and yet the treasure goes on glimmering in the dark, unaltered.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Isolate her, and however abundant the food or favourable the temperature, she will expire in a few days not of hunger or cold, but of loneliness.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Niemand is waarlijk mijn vriend, voordat we geleerd hebben in elkanders tegenwoordigheid te zwijgen.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent and willful madness, but which, on the other side of our appearances, is probably an action of health. ("Of Immortality")”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Las más bellas morales humanas están todas fundadas sobre la idea de que es preciso luchar y sufrir para purificarse, elevarse y perfeccionarse; pero ninguna trata de explicar por qué es necesario empezar de nuevo sin cesar. ¿Dónde va, pues, en qué abismos infinitos se pierde, desde eternidades sin límites, lo que se ha elevado en nosotros y no ha dejado vestigios? ¿Por qué si el Anima Mundi es soberanamente sabia ha querido estas luchas y estos sufrimientos que jamás han llegado y que, por consecuencia, jamás llegarán al fin? ¿Por qué no haber puesto, al primer esfuerzo, todas las cosas al punto de perfección a que nosotros creemos que tienden? ¿Por qué es preciso merecer su dicha? Pero ¿qué méritos pueden tener los que luchan o sufren mejor que sus hermanos, puesto que la fuerza o la virtud que les anima no la tienen más que porque un poder exterior la ha puesto en ellos más propiciamente que en otros?”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Sobald wir etwas aussprechen, entwerten wir es seltsam. Wir glauben in die Tiefe der Abgründe hinabgetaucht zu sein, und wenn wir wieder an die Oberfläche kommen, gleicht der Wassertropfen an unseren bleichen Fingerspitzen nicht mehr dem Meere, dem er entstammt. Wir wähnen eine Schatzgrube wunderbarer Schätze entdeckt zu haben, und wenn wir wieder ans Tageslicht kommen, haben wir nur falsche Steine und Glasscherben mitgebracht; und trotzdem schimmert der Schatz im Finstern unverändert.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“El dolor es inevitable, el sufrimiento es opcional.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“When we lose someone we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing.”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future tradition has placed 10 000 men to guard the past”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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“Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers?”
Maurice Maeterlinck
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