Maurice Maeterlinck Quotes

“Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself 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.”

“An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.”

“Happiness is rarely absent; it is we that know not of its presence.”

“He who sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.”

“In any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.”

“It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.”

“It is only in the space that our thoughts and our feelings enclose that our happiness can breathe in freedom.”

“It is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells within others.”

“Justice is the very last thing of all wherewith the universe concerns itself. It is equilibrium that absorbs its attention.”

“Many a happiness in life, a many a disaster, is due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.”

“No great inner event befalls those who summon it not.”

“Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature.”

“Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts.”

“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.”

“The true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind.”

“The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods.”

“There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the shape of our everyday thoughts.”

“To disdain today is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood.”

“We should tell ourselves once and for all that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power.

To this end we may sacrifice even the passion for sacrifice, for sacrifice never should be the means of ennoblement, but only the sign of being ennobled.”

“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”

“Wisdom requires no form; her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is no motionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne.”