Stéphane Mallarmé quotes - page 2

How, save through obscure Terrors, imagine more implacable still And as a suppliant the god who some day will Receive the gift of your grace! and for whom, Devoured by anguish, do you keep the unknown Splendor and mystery of your being? (Stéphane Mallarmé)
I wait, but do not know for what or why Or perhaps you are uttering the last bruised sighs, Ignorant of the mystery and of your cries, Of a childhood feeling its frozen gems Being broken off at last amidst its dreams. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Dreams have as much influences as actions. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Poetry is the language of a state of crisis. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Paintings are painted with paint, not with ideas. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
If only I'd chosen an easy work! View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Degas was discussing poetry with Mallarmé; "It isn't ideas I'm short of... I've got too many", said Degas. "But Degas," replied Mallarmé, "you can't make a poem with ideas. ... You make it with words. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Its gaze profound Up where the frozen Absolute has chosen That nothing shall measure Its vastness, O glacier But according to a ritual Illumined by the principle That chose my consecration It extends a salutation. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
A kiss would kill me, woman, If beauty were not death... View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
I am alone in my monotonous country, While all those around me live in the idolatry Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen ... View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
I inaugurate through science The hymn of all hearts spiritual. (Stéphane Mallarmé)
The visible serene artificial breath Of inspiration, which regains the sky. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
I am inventing a language that must necessarily burst forth from a very new poetics, that could be defined in a couple of words: Paint, not the thing, but the effect it produces. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
I feel in my sinews The spreading of shadows Converging together With a shiver. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Walk no longer in an unknown age... View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
When the sad sun sinks, It shall pierce through the body of wax till it shrinks! View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Poets don't finish poems, they abandon them. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
The world exists to end up in a book. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Everything that is sacred and that wishes to remain so must envelop itself in mystery. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul. So sublime, my friend, that I want to gaze upon matter, fully conscious that it exists, and yet launching itself madly into Dream, despite its knowledge that Dream has no existence, extolling the Soul and all the divine impressions of that kind which have collected within us from the beginning of time and proclaiming, in the face of the Void which is truth, these glorious lies! (Stéphane Mallarmé)
Degas was discussing poetry with Mallarmé; "It isn't ideas I'm short of... I've got too many" [Ce ne sont pas les idées qui me manquent... J'en ai trop], said Degas. "But Degas," replied Mallarmé, "you can't make a poem with ideas. ... You make it with words." [Mais, Degas, ce n'est point avec des idées que l'on fait des vers. . . . C'est avec des mots.]. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
A kiss would kill me, woman, If beauty were not death... By what attraction Am I drawn, what morn forgotten by the prophets That pours on the dying distance its sad rites? View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
I feel in my sinews The spreading of shadows Converging together With a shiver And in solitary vigil After flights triumphal My head rise From this scythe Through a clean rupture That serves to dissever The ancient disharmony With the body As drunk from fasting It persists in following With a haggard bound Its gaze profound Up where the frozen Absolute has chosen That nothing shall measure Its vastness, O glacier But according to a ritual Illumined by the principle That chose my consecration It extends a salutation. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé
No water murmurs but what my flute pours On the chord sprinkled thicket; and the sole wind Prompt to exhale from my two pipes, before It scatters the sound in a waterless shower, Is, on the horizon's unwrinkled space, The visible serene artificial breath Of inspiration, which regains the sky. View quote
Stéphane Mallarmé