Books are not life, only its ashes.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
To stay in one place and watch the seasons come and go is tanatmount to constant travel: One is traveling with the earth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Observing the changing seasons offers a sense of movement and exploration, even while remaining stationary.
In this quote, Yourcenar suggests that being attuned to the rhythms of nature and the changes of the seasons can be as enriching as physically traveling. It emphasizes the idea that even in stillness, one can experience the beauty and dynamism of the world around them through observation and reflection.
Themes
NatureSeasonsTravelObservationExperience
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of appreciating nature.
More from Marguerite Yourcenar
All quotes βMeditation upon death does not teach one how to die; it does not make the departure more easy, but ease is not what I seek. Beloved boy, so willful and brooding, your sacrifice will have enriched not my life but my death. ... Centuries as yet unborn within the dark womb of time would pass by thousands over that tomb without restoring life to him, but likewise without adding to his death, and without changing the fact that he had been.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
Our true birthplace is that in which we cast for the first time an intelligent eye on ourselves. My first homelands were my books.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
The landscape of my days appears to be composed, like mountainous regions, of varied materials heaped up pell-mell. There I see my nature, itself composite, made up of equal parts of instinct and training. Here and there protrude the granite peaks of the inevitable, but all about is rubble from the landslips of chance.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
When two texts, or two assertions, perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other; regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is too complex.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey.
Marguerite YourcenarRead
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Allow nature to teach you stillness.
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To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.
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