Gerard De Nerval Quotes & Sayings

One third of our life is spent in sleep. It is consolation for the troubles of our waking hours or atonement for their pleasures; but I have never experienced sleep to be mere repose. After a few minutes' lethargy, a new life begins, untrammeled by the limitations of time and space, and undoubtedly similar to that which awaits us after death ... — Gerard De Nerval

I have seen so many lands vanish in my wake, torn down like stage sets. What survives of them? An image as fleeting as a dream: whatever beauties I discovered, I already knew by heart. — Gerard De Nerval

You see spirits who talk to you in broad daylight, at night you see perfectly shaped, perfectly distinct phantoms, you think you remember having lived in other forms, you imagine you are growing very tall and that your head is touching the stars, the horizon of Saturn and Jupiter spreads before your eyes, bizarre creatures appear before you with all the characteristics of real beings ... If the mind has to become completely unhinged in order to place us in communication with another world, it is clear that the mad will never be able to prove to the sane how blind they are, to say the very least! — Gerard De Nerval

If there is, to be sure, something more terrifying than the history of the fall of great empires, it is the history of the death of religions. Volney himself was overcome by this feeling as he visited the innumerable ruins of once-sacred buildings. The true believer may still escape from this impression, but with the inherent scepticism of our age all of us must sometime tremble to find so many dark gates opening out on to nothingness. — Gerard De Nerval

The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life! And yet can we cast out of our spirits all the good or evil poured into them by so many learned generations? Ignorance cannot be learned. — Gerard De Nerval

I've had enough of chasing after poetry; I believe that poetry lies at one's very door or perhaps in one's very bed. I'm still a man on the run, but I shall try to stop and wait. — Gerard De Nerval

How lovely she was in her raiments of silk and levantine purple; the fabric provocatively set off the sheen of her white shoulders, which glistened with the sweat of the world. I was on the verge of giving in to the dangerous enticements of her caresses when I realized that I recognized her from an earlier encounter, back at the dawn of time. — Gerard De Nerval

The last madness I'll probably persist in is to believe myself a poet: it will be up to the critics to cure me. — Gerard De Nerval

Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature. — Gerard De Nerval

I have always differentiated between two types of friends; those who want proofs of friendship, and those who do not. One kind loves me for myself and the others for themselves. — Gerard De Nerval

The only refuge left to us was the poet's ivory tower, which we climbed, ever higher, to isolate ourselves from the mob. — Gerard De Nerval

Don't wait up for me tonight, for the night will be black and white. — Gerard De Nerval

My brow still burns from the kiss of the queen; I have dreamed in the grotto where the siren swims . . . — Gerard De Nerval

Man, do you think yours is the only soul? Look around you. Everything that you see quivers with being. Though your thoughts are free, one thing you do not think about: the whole. Beasts have a mind; respect it. Flowers too- look at one. Nature brought forth each petal. There is a mystery that sleeps in metal. Everything feels, and has power over you. — Gerard De Nerval

And then a lady in a window high,
Fair-haired, dark-eyed, and dressed in ancient style ...
Whom, in another life, perhaps I've seen,
And whom I now remember with a sigh. — Gerard De Nerval

The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet; the second, an imbecile. — Gerard De Nerval

Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog? ... or a cat, or a gazelle, or a lion, or any other animal one chooses to take for a walk? I have a liking for lobsters. They are peaceful, serious creatures ... Goethe had an aversion to dogs, and he wasn't mad. They know the secrets of the sea, they don't bark. — Gerard De Nerval

The name Prometheus has always caused me particular annoyance, for my breast still aches from the everlasting beak of the vulture from which Alcides set me free. — Gerard De Nerval

I have never felt any rest in sleep. For a few seconds I am numbed, then a new life begins, freed from the conditions of time and space, and doubtless similar to that state which awaits us after death. Who knows if there is not some link between those two existences and if it is not possible for the soul to unite them now? — Gerard De Nerval

The key to success is simple. Make people dream. — Gerard De Nerval

What is madness ... to go on platonically loving a woman who will never love you. — Gerard De Nerval

The enthusiasm of old men is singularly like that of infancy. — Gerard De Nerval

A serious bibliophile never lends his books. In fact he does not even read his books, for fear of wearing them out. — Gerard De Nerval

Sleep occupies a third of our life. It is the consolation to the woes of our days or the woe of their pleasures; but I have never found that sleep was a rest. After a swoon of a few minutes a new life begins, freed from conditions of time and space, and doubtless like the life which awaits us after death. Who knows whether there does not exist a link between these two existences, and whether it is not possible for the soul now to bind them together? — Gerard De Nerval

How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it? Everything lives, moves, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays, emanating either from myself or from others, cross the limitless chain of created things unimpeded; it is a transparent network that covers the world, and its slender threads communicate themselves by degrees to the planets and stars. Captive now upon earth, I commune with the chorus of the stars who share in my joys and sorrows. — Gerard De Nerval

The first moments of sleep are an image of death; a hazy torpor grips our thoughts and it becomes impossible for us to determine the exact instant when the 'I,' under another form, continues the task of existence. — Gerard De Nerval

Water drinkers perceive nothing but the crude and material appearance of things, while intoxication, on the contrary, dulls the eyes of the body and brightens those of the soul. — Gerard De Nerval

Our dreams are a second life. I have never been able to penetrate without a shudder those ivory or horned gates which separate us from the invisible world. — Gerard De Nerval

It has been rightly said that nothing is unimportant, nothing powerless in the universe; a single atom can dissolve everything, and save everything! What terror! There lies the eternal distinction between good and evil. — Gerard De Nerval

Even as it clouds our corporeal vision, intoxication clarifies our spiritual vision. The mind, set free from the heavy bondage of the body, flees away like a prisoner whose guard has fallen asleep, leaving the keys at the prison gate. — Gerard De Nerval

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation. — Gerard De Nerval

Our dreams are a second life. — Gerard De Nerval

Man, free thinker!
Do you imagine you alone think in this world where life is blazing forth in all things?
You are free to avail yourself of the forces you command, but the universe has gone missing from your prescriptions. — Gerard De Nerval

The intoxication of the faro drinker only shows itself at first by an increase in noise which is only deafening, and finally by a silent deterioration of the mind. — Gerard De Nerval

Nothing is indifferent, nothing is powerless in the universe; an atom might destroy everything, an atom might save everything! — Gerard De Nerval