“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
The gods weave misfortunes for men, so that the generations to come will have something to sing about.” Mallarmé repeats, less beautifully, what Homer said; “tout aboutit en un livre,” everything ends up in a book. The Greeks speak of generations that will sing; Mallarmé speaks of an object, of a thing among things, a book. But the idea is the same; the idea that we are made for art, we are made for memory, we are made for poetry, or perhaps we are made for oblivion. But something remains, and that something is history or poetry, which are not essentially different.
More to explore
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
“Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.”
“To deny temporal succession, to deny the self, to deny the astronomical universe, are measures of apparent despair and of secret consolation. Our destiny (in contrast to Swedenborg's hell and the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irrevers...”
“My undertaking is not difficult, essentially. I should only have to be immortal to carry it out.”
Explore over 387,000 quotes from your favorite books and authors.
Browse All Quotes