Alphonse De Lamartine Quotes

The photographer will never replace the painter; one is a man, the other a machine. Let us compare them no longer. (1848)

Chance often gives us that which we should not have presumed to ask.

It is because of the servility of photography that I am fundamentally contemptuous of this chance invention which will never be an art but which plagiarizes nature by means of optics. (1848)

The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.

Ink is the transcript of thought.

Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet.

Enthusiasm is the intoxication of earnestness.

At twenty every one is republican.

Thou makest the man, O Sorrow!--yes, the whole man,--as the crucible gold.

Sentiment is the poetry of the imagination.

Man, man, is thy brother, and thy father is God.

Silence,--the applause of real and durable impressions.

History teaches everything, even the future.

Let us enjoy the fugitive hour. Man has no harbor, time has no shore; it rushes on, and carries us with it.

Philosophy is the rational expression of genius.

Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.

Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.

True love is the ripe fruit of a lifetime.

Poetry has been the guardian angel of humanity in all ages.

It is for truth that God created genius.

Civil wars leave nothing but tombs.

Fiction is the microscope of truth.

Esteem incites friendship, but not love; the former is the twin brother of Reverence; the latter is the child of Equality.

Poetry is the morning dream of great minds.

Let us love the passing hour, let us hurry up and enjoy our time.

Life is too short to spare an hour of it in the indulgence of this evil passion.

God has placed the genius of women in their hearts, because the works of this genius are always works of love.

Joy is a flame which association alone can keep alive, and which goes out unless communicated.

Time is a great ocean which, like the other ocean, overflows with our remains.

Assassination makes only martyrs, not converts.

Photography is better than art. It is a solar phenomenon in which the artist collaborates with the sun.

Women have much more heart and much more imagination than men; hence, fancy often allures them.

Too much I've seen, and felt, and lov'd in life, Living I come to seek Lethaean calm; Let me, fair scenes! forget all worldly strife, Oblivion solely is my bosom's balm.

When a dog is in your life, there is always a reason to laugh.

I say to this night: "Pass more slowly"; and the dawn will come to dispel the night.

I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.

Virginity is the poetry, not the reality, of life.

The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.

Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless, Be happy while you may!

Unanimity is the mistress of strength.

...to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state

My dog! the difference between thee and me knows only our Creator.

What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.

Man hath no Heaven and Time's coast is chartless. He speeds; we pass away!

It is in the habits of lawyers that every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny; it is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men.

Eternity is so certain and so terrible that a thousand lives would not suffice to prepare for it.

Private passions tire and exhaust themselves, public ones never.

France is revolutionary or she is nothing at all. The revolution of1789 is her political religion.

It is admirable to die the victim of one's faith; it is sad to die the dupe of one's ambition.