Quotes by Alfred de Vigny

About Alfred de Vigny:

Alfred Victor, Comte de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. He was a major figure in the French Romantic movement.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements.

Alfred de Vigny

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

Alfred de Vigny

Of late years (perhaps as a result of our political changes) art has borrowed from history more than ever.

Alfred de Vigny

The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds

Alfred de Vigny

I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words

Alfred de Vigny

Hope is the greatest madness. What can we expect of a world that we enter with the assurance of seeing our fathers and mothers die? A world where, if two beings love each other and give their lives to each other, both can be sure that one will watch ...

Alfred de Vigny

To hold power has always meant to manipulate idiots and circumstances; and those circumstances and those idiots, tossed together, bring about those coincidences to which even the greatest men confess they owe most of their fame

Alfred de Vigny

We have also set up for them an edifying project for a continuous mitigation of their own tyranny, ascribing to them an unshakeable faith in the triumph of virtue, as well as in the moral justification of their crimes. These are the theories of well-...

Alfred de Vigny

Oh, I have a habit of letting myself be lectured on the things I know best. I like to see if they are understood in the same way I understand; for there are many ways of knowing the same thing

Alfred de Vigny

I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the me...

Alfred de Vigny

Not one little fellow need fear that he will be forbidden to pluck his shining grape from the cluster of political Power, that fruit reputed to be so full of wealth and glory. Can’t every gang become a club? and every club an assembly? an assembly,...

Alfred de Vigny

Observe this fact: in the history of mankind, every ruler who has lacked personal greatness has been forced to compensate for the deficiency by setting up the executioner at his right hand like a guardian angel

Alfred de Vigny

Those intellectuals are our natural enemies; the only kind who are worth anything are the musicians and the dancers: they don’t insult anybody with their performances, and they neither sing nor dance politics. So I like them; but don’t let me hea...

Alfred de Vigny

One is always a good master when one isn’t the master

Alfred de Vigny

I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller - some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity and experience, of the links of this vast chain of events which his sight could not take in.

Alfred de Vigny

France, for example, loves at the same time history and the drama, because the one explores the vast destinies of humanity, and the other the individual lot of man.

Alfred de Vigny

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.

Alfred de Vigny

One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.

Alfred de Vigny

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?

Alfred de Vigny

Do you know that charming part of our country which has been called the garden of France - that spot where, amid verdant plains watered by wide streams, one inhales the purest air of heaven?

Alfred de Vigny

Author Bio

  • NameAlfred de Vigny
  • DescriptionFrench poet, playwright, and novelist
  • AliasesAlfred Victor de Vigny
  • BornMarch 27, 1797
  • DiedSeptember 17, 1863
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionWriter; Playwright; Poet; Novelist