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George Sand Quotes | Quotes said by George Sand

  • George Sand Quote #1

    [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.


  • George Sand Quote #2

    [On Chopin's Preludes:]

    His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky. ... The gift of Chopin is [the expression of] the deepest and fullest feelings and emotions that have ever existed. He made a single instrument speak a language of infinity. He could often sum up, in ten lines that a child could play, poems of a boundless exaltation, dramas of unequalled power.

  • George Sand Quote #3

    Ce n'est pas la première fois que je remarque combien, en France particulièrement, les mots ont plus d’empire que les idées.

    (It's not the first time I've noticed how much more power words have than ideas, particularly in France.)

  • George Sand Quote #4

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

  • George Sand Quote #5

    Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

  • George Sand Quote #6

    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.

  • George Sand Quote #7

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

  • George Sand Quote #8

    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.

  • George Sand Quote #9

    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.

  • George Sand Quote #10

    Immodest creature, you do not want a woman who will accept your faults, you want the one who pretends you are faultless – one who will caress the hand that strikes her and kiss the lips that lie to her.

    (Letter, 17 June 1837)

  • George Sand Quote #11

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

  • George Sand Quote #12

    It is warm, I am alive, I am calm and sad, I hardly know why. In this existence so even, so tranquil, and so gentle as I have here, I am in an element that weakens me morally while strengthening me physically; and I fall into melancholies of honey and roses which are none the less melancholy. It seems to me that all those I love forget me, and that it is justice, because I live a selfish life having nothing to do for any one of them.

  • George Sand Quote #13

    J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible.

    (I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.)

    [Letter to Jules Boucoiran, 4 March 1831]

  • George Sand Quote #14

    La beauté qui parle aux yeux, reprit-elle, n’est que le prestige d’un moment; l’œuil du corps n'est pas toujours celui de l'âme.

    (The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes, she continued, is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.)

    [Le beau Laurence]

  • George Sand Quote #15

    La nature est une oeuvre d'art, mais Dieu est le seul artiste qui existe, et l'homme n'est qu'un arrangeur de mauvais goût. La nature est belle, le sentiment s'exhale de tous ses pores; l'amour, la jeunesse, la beauté y sont impérissables. Mais l'homme n'a pour les sentir et les exprimer que des moyens absurdes et des facultés misérables. Il vaudrait mieux qu'il ne s'en mêlat pas, qu'il fût muet et se renfermât dans la contemplation.

  • George Sand Quote #16

    La vie ressemble plus souvent à un roman qu'un roman ne ressemble à la vie.

    (Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.)

  • George Sand Quote #17

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

    (The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route.)

    [Letter to Armand Barbès, 12 May 1867]

  • George Sand Quote #18

    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?

  • George Sand Quote #19

    Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.

  • George Sand Quote #20

    May every soul that touches mine—
    be it the slightest contact –
    Get therefore some good;
    Some little grace, one kindly thought;
    One aspiration yet unfelt;
    One bit of courage
    For the darkening sky;
    One gleam of faith
    To brave the thickening ills of life;
    One glimpse of brighter skies
    Beyond the gathering mist –
    To make their life worthwhile.

  • George Sand Quote #21

    Nature alone can speak to our intelligence an imperishable language, never changing, because it remains within the bounds of eternal truth and of what is absolutely noble and beautiful.

  • George Sand Quote #22

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

  • George Sand Quote #23

    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

  • George Sand Quote #24

    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.

  • George Sand Quote #25

    Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius.

  • George Sand Quote #26

    The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

  • George Sand Quote #27

    The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul.

  • George Sand Quote #28

    The capacity of passion is both cruel and divine

  • George Sand Quote #29

    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!

  • George Sand Quote #30

    There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

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