George Sand > Quotes

“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.”
― George Sand

“Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.”
― George Sand, Letters Of George Sand

“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

“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”
― George Sand

“We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire.”
― George Sand, Mauprat

“Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect”
― George Sand, Indiana

“Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile.”
― George Sand

“The old woman I shall become will be quite different from the woman I am now. Another I is beginning.”
― George Sand

“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, Indiana

“Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.”
― George Sand

“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

“Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and joy.”
― George Sand

“The capacity of passion is both cruel and divine”
― George Sand

“There are no more thorough prudes than those who have some little secret to hide.”
― George Sand

“You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing.”
― George Sand

“I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men. . . . People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off.”
― George Sand, Indiana

“Know how to replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the happiness that may be wanting to yourself”
― George Sand

“Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le compliqué.”
― George Sand

“Il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé.”
― George Sand

“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.”
― George Sand

“The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women.”
― George Sand

“...Je n’ai pas cessé de l’être si c’est d’être jeune que d’aimer toujours !... L’humanité n’est pas un vain mot. Notre vie est faite d’amour, et ne plus aimer c’est ne plus vivre."
(I have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving... Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is made of love, and to love no longer is to live no longer.)”
― George Sand, The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters

“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, George Sand: A Biography

“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, The Devil's Pool

“A day will come when everything in my life will be changed, when I shall do good to others, when some one will love me, when I shall give my whole heart to the man whi gives ne his; neanwhile, U will suffer in silence and keep my love as a reward for him who shall set me free.”
― George Sand, Indiana

“Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.”
― George Sand

“There is only one happiness in life -- to love and to be loved.”
― George Sand

“¡Dejadme escapar de la mentirosa y criminal ilusión de la felicidad!
Dadme trabajo, cansancio, dolor y entusiasmo.”
― George Sand

“Admiration and familiarity are strangers.”
― George Sand

“The most honest of men is the one who thinks and acts best, but the most powerful is the one who writes and speaks best.”
― George Sand, Indiana

“When they are among us cats are angels”
― George Sand

“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

“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, Indiana