Maurice Maeterlinck

“ No virtue, here, to kindle dazzling fires on the mountain, but heart and soul that are alive with flame. No heroism but that of love, of confidence and sincerity, that remember and are content to wait. Some men there are whose virtue issues from them with a noise of clanging gates; in others it dwells as silent as the maid who never stirs from home, who sits thoughtfully by the fireside, always ready to welcome those who enter from the cold without. There is less need of heroic hours, perhaps, in a beautiful life, than of weeks that are grave, and uniform, and pure. ”

“ Let fortune hurl any man into the burning centre of a movement that had swept every barrier down, it were surely not possible to reveal a finer character or loftier spirit. Could we fashion, deep down in our heart, out of all that is purest within us, out of all our wisdom and all our love, some beautiful, spotless creature with never a thought of self, without weakness or error—such a being would desire a place by the side of Vergniaud, on those deserted Convention seats, "whereon the shadow of death seemed already to hover," that he might think as Vergniaud thought, and so speak, and act. ”

“ Let your task be to render yourself worthy of love—and this even more for your own happiness than for that of another. For be sure that when love is unequal, and the hours come clouded with sorrow, it is not the wiser of the two who will suffer the most—not the one that shows more generosity, justice, more high-minded passion. The one who is better will rarely become the victim deserving our pity. For, indeed, to be truly a victim it must be our own faults, our injustice, wrongdoing, beneath which we suffer. However imperfect you be, you still may suffice for the love of a marvellous being ”

“ Sacrifice is a beautiful token of unrest; but unrest should not be nurtured within us for sake of itself. To the soul that is slowly awakening all appears sacrifice; but few things indeed are so called by the soul that at last lives the life whereof self-denial, pity, devotion, are no longer indispensable roots, but only invisible flowers. For in truth too many do thus feel the need of destroying—though it be without cause—a happiness, love, or a hope that is theirs, thereby to obtain clearer vision of self in the light of the consuming flame. ”

“ Go where we will, the plentiful river of life flows on, beneath the canopy of heaven. It flows between prison walls, where the sun never gleams on its waters; as it flows by the palace steps, where all is gladness and glory. Not our concern the depth of this river, or its width, or the strength of its current, as it streams on for ever, pertaining to all; but of deepest importance to us is the size and the purity of the cup that we plunge in its waters. For whatever of life we absorb must needs take the form of this cup, as this, too, has taken the form of our thoughts and our feelings ”

“ And he is wise who has learned that this life should be nourished on every event of the day: he to whom deceit or betrayal serves but to enhance his wisdom: he in whom evil itself becomes fuel for the flame of love. He is wise who at last sees in suffering only the light that it sheds on his soul; and whose eyes never rest on the shadow it casts upon those who have sent it towards him. And wiser still is the man to whom sorrow and joy not only bring increase of consciousness, but also the knowledge that something exists superior to consciousness even. ”

“ For indeed in the wish alone does inequality lie, but this inequality vanishes the moment it has been perceived. Does the thought that our wish might be nobler not at once bring nobility with it; does not the breast of our destiny throb to this new aspiration, thereby expanding the docile cup of the ideal—the cup whose metal is pliable, still to the cold stern hour of death? No cause for complaint has he who has learned that his feelings are lacking in generous ardour, or the other who nurses within him a hope for a little more happiness, a little more beauty, a little more justice. ”

“ 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. If my soul, on awaking this morning, was cheered, as it dwelt on its love, by a thought that drew near to a God—a God, we have said, who is doubtless no more than the loveliest desire of our soul—then shall I behold this same thought astir in the beggar who passes my window the moment thereafter ”

“ We should be as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as long as is possible; for those who can finally issue forth from self by the portal of happiness, know infinitely wider freedom than those who pass through the gate of sadness. The joy of the sage illumines his heart and his soul alike, whereas sadness most often throws light on the heart alone. One might almost compare the man who had never been happy with a traveller whose every journey had been taken by night. Moreover, there is in happiness a humility deeper and nobler, purer and wider, than sorrow can ever procure. ”

“ We see that many souls round us lead idle and foolish lives, because they believe they are useless, unnoticed by all, unloved, and convinced they have nothing within them that is worthy of love. But to the sage the hour must come when every soul that exists claims his glance, his approval, his love—if only because it possesses the mysterious gift of existence. The hour must come when he sees that falsehood and weakness and vice are but on the surface; when his eye shall pierce through, and discover the strength, and the truth, and the virtue that lie underneath. ”

“ She watches the flame of her lamp; needs must it burn brightly, and remain at its post, and be seen from afar. She listens, untroubled, to the murmur of inferior instincts out there in the darkness. But the prisoners slowly awake; there are some who draw nigh to the threshold, and their radiance is greater than hers. There flows from them a light less material, softer and purer than that of the bold, hard flame which her hand protects. They are the inscrutable powers of goodness and love; and others follow behind, more mysterious still, and more infinite, seeking admission. ”

“ The whole village, the town, will flock to the spot where some wretched adventure takes place; but there are none will pause for an instant and let their eyes rest on a kiss, or a vision of beauty that gladdens the soul, a ray of love that illumines the heart. And yet may the kiss be productive of joy no less great than the pain that follows a wound. We are unjust; we never associate destiny with happiness; and if we do not regard it as being inseparable from death, it is only to connect it with disaster even greater than death itself. ”

“ Can we conceive a situation in life wherein a man who is truly wise and noble can be made to suffer as profoundly as the man who follows evil? In this world it is far more certain that vice will be punished, than that virtue will meet with reward; yet we must bear in mind that it is the habit of crime to shriek aloud beneath its punishment, whereas virtue rewards itself in the silence that is the walled garden of its happiness. Evil drags horrid catastrophe behind it; but an act of virtue is only a silent offering to the profoundest laws of life ”

“ Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels. It is a grave, error to think that the beauty of soul is most clearly revealed by the eager desire for sacrifice; for the soul's fertile beauty resides in its consciousness, in the elevation and power of its life. There are some, it is true, that awake from their sleep at the call of sacrifice only; but these lack the strength and the courage to seek other forms of moral existence. ”

“ In "Wuthering Heights"—wherein this soul gives to the world its passions, desires, reflections, realisations, ideals, which is, in a word, its real history—in "Wuthering Heights" there is more adventure, more passion, more energy, more ardour, more love, than is needed to give life or fulfilment to twenty heroic existences, twenty destinies of gladness or sorrow. Not a single event ever paused as it passed by her threshold; yet did every event she could claim take place in her heart, with incomparable force and beauty, with matchless precision and detail. ”

“ They only who know not what goodness is are ever clamouring for the wage of goodness. Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is of itself always an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. The upright man who perished in the catastrophe I mentioned was there because his soul had found a peace and strength in virtue that not happiness, love, or glory could have given him. ”

“ And, acting thus, he too will have drawn near the source whither happy ones flock—oftener far than one thinks, and in the most ardent hours of happiness even—the source over which they bend, to make sure that they truly are happy. Far down, at the root of love's joys—as at the root of the humble life of the upright man from whom fate has withheld her smile—it is confidence, sincerity, generosity, tenderness, that alone are truly fixed and unchangeable. Love throws more lustre still on these points of light, and therefore must love be sought. ”

“ If Judas go forth to-night, it is towards Judas his steps will tend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates open his door, he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him, and there will be occasion for wisdom. Our adventures hover around us like bees round the hive when preparing to swarm. They wait till the mother-idea has at last come forth from our soul, and no sooner has she appeared than they all come rushing towards her. Be false, and falsehoods will haste to you; love, and adventures will flock to you, throbbing with love. ”

“ Many a youthful Marcus Aurelius is still about us; many a Macbeth, who never stirs from his room. However imperfect our conception of virtue, still let us cling to it; for a moment's forgetfulness exposes us to all the malignant forces from without. The simplest lie to myself, buried though it may be in the silence of my soul, may yet be as dangerous to my inner liberty as an act of treachery on the marketplace. And from the moment that my inner liberty is threatened, destiny prowls around my external liberty as stealthily as a beast of prey that has long been tracking its victim. ”

“ He reads the future, but knows not that goodness and forgiveness are lords of the future. He knows the truth of the gods, but not the truth of mankind. He ignores the wisdom that takes misfortune to her arms and would fain give it of her strength. Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of love be not theirs; for the true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. He who sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness. ”

“ To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest of happiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come to us one to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman felicity, that all men regarded with envy; and if he were very simply to say to us, "All is mine that you pray for each day: I have riches, and youth, and health; I have glory, and power, and love; and if to-day I am truly able to call myself happy, it is not on account of the gifts that fortune has deigned to accord me, but because I have learned from these gifts to fix my eyes far above happiness. ”

“ Love is the unconscious sun of our soul; and it is when its beams are most ardent, and purest, that they bear most surprising resemblance to those that the soul, aglow with justice and truth, with beauty and majesty, has kindled within itself, and adds to, incessantly. Is not the happiness that accident brought to the heart of Eponina within reach of every heart, so the will to possess it be there? Is not all that was sweetest in this love of hers—the devotion of self, the transformation of regret into happiness, of pleasure renounced into joy that abides in the heart for ever ”

“ Can we live, it matters not where, and love, and hate, listening for no footfall, spurning no creature? Is the soul self-sufficient; and is it always the soul that decides, a certain height once gained? Is it only to those whose conscience still slumbers that events can seem sad or sterile? Did not love and beauty, happiness and adventure—did not all that we go in search of along the ways of life congregate in Emily Bronte's heart? Day after day passed by, with never a joy or emotion; never a smile that the eye could see or the hand could touch ”