I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words
Alfred De VignyRead
Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that reality gradually transforms into something that resembles imagination or fiction.
Alfred De Vigny's quote reflects on the idea that our perception of reality often evolves into something more idealized or embellished, akin to fiction. It prompts us to consider how our experiences, once viewed plainly, can eventually be colored by our imagination, thus blurring the lines between what is real and what is imagined.
Themes
RealityImaginationPerceptionTransformationFiction
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of storytelling, one might say, 'As De Vigny noted, do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?'
More from Alfred De Vigny
All quotes →The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men.
Alfred De VignyRead
We shall find in our troubled hearts, where discord reigns, two needs which seem at variance, but which merge, as I think, in a common source - the love of the true, and the love of the fabulous.
Alfred De VignyRead
History is a novel for which the people is the author.
Alfred De VignyRead
Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?
Alfred De VignyRead
Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?
Alfred De VignyRead
Similar quotes
People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.
Edmund BurkeRead
If you should ask me where I've been all this time I have to say "Things happen." I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth, on the river ruined in its own duration: I know nothing save things the birds have lost, the sea I left behind, or my sister crying. Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock with day? Why the dark night swilling round in our mouths? And why the dead?
Pablo NerudaRead
Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.
VoltaireRead
But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself— that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved— what then?
Carl JungRead
It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labour as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies.
Pope Leo XiiiRead
It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.
Thomas HuxleyRead