Alfred de Musset Quotes

Partake of love as a temperate man partakes of wine; do not become intoxicated.

Vanity and dignity are incompatible with each other; vain women are almost sure to be vulnerable.

The heart that once has been your shrine for other loves is too divine

The return makes one love the farewell.

What a frightful weapon is human thought! It is our defense and our safeguard, the most precious gift that God has made us. It is ours and it obeys us; we may launch it forth into space, but, once outside of our feeble brains, it is gone; we can no longer control it.

You’re like a lighthouse shining beside the sea of humanity, motionless: all you can see is your own reflection in the water. You’re alone, so you think it’s a vast, magnificent panorama. You haven’t sounded the depths. You simply believe in the beauty of God’s creation. But I have spent all this time in the water, diving deep into the howling ocean of life, deeper than anyone. While you were admiring the surface, I saw the shipwrecks, the drowned bodies, the monsters of the deep

Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.

A happy memory is perhaps on this earth truer than happiness itself.

I could not clearly distinguish what was passing in my head; it seemed to me that I was under the influence of a horrible dream and that I had but to awake to find myself cured; at times it seemed that my entire life had been a dream, ridiculous and childish, the falseness of which had just been disclosed.

Life is a sleep, love is a dream; and you have lived if you have loved.

Look at the sun! It’s dry, it’s dead, it needs a drink, it wants blood! And I’ll give it blood!

In my flowery dreams there's always you. I do not regret it one bit.

Any cigar smoker is a friend, because I know how he feels.

... but one loves, and when one is on the brink of death, one turns around to look backward, and one says to oneself: "I have often suffered, I have sometimes been wrong, but I have loved.

Oh! my friend, when you feel bursting on your lips the vow of eternal love, do not be afraid to yield, but do not confound wine with intoxication; do not think the cup divine because the draft is of celestial flavor; do not be astonished to find it broken and empty in the evening.

I don't know where my road is going, but I know that I walk better when I hold your hand.

The fumes of wine fermented in my head; it was one of those moments of intoxication when all that ones sees and hears, speaks to one of the adored.... One would willingly embrace all who smile, and one feels that he is brother of all who live.