Quotes by Belgian Authors - Page 3

Behind every work of art lies the enormous pretension of exhibiting one's vision of the world. If such obvious arrogance is not counterbalanced by the tribulations of doubt, all that remains is a monster who is to art what a fanatic is to faith.
Amélie Nothomb
I believe that poems die the moment they are outwardly expressed.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Regret and remorse” is a dialectic issue about what has been done, about what should have been done and about what should not have been done. ( “Island of regret. Island of remorse” )
Erik Pevernagie
When the bonfire of love still smolders in the wake of emotional convulsions, seeds of regret and remorse may endlessly linger about on the path of life. ("Taken for a ride)
Erik Pevernagie
Love is like a musical score, sometimes very tuneful, creating a harmony of sounds, sometimes extremely harsh, striking a hell of false notes. (“Love lying fallow “)
Erik Pevernagie
Your heart is who you are. It’s the one and only thing throughout the whole world, which will never lie to you. From the very first moment you start to be honest with it, and you start to act on your dreams in life, your heart will stop making you unhappy.
Jellis Vaes
Just as our parents' souls revolted against God, their bodies revolted against their souls, to which they had been subject. And they realized 'that they were naked.
Alice von Hildebrand
The Enlightenment may have made its most lasting impact in the way we live and think today through its social history. Our institutions and laws, our conception of the state, and our political sensitivity all stem from Enlightenment ideas… Remarkably enough, at the center of these ideas stands the age-old concept of natural law. Much if the Enlightenment’s innovation in in political theory may be traced to a change in the interpretation of that concept.
Louis Dupré
Lightning can best be seen in the dark...Bright persons do best in bad circumstances
Erik Tanghe
Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.
May Sarton
Night is the permanent revolution, that of the globe. Every sundown the streets change, becoming sinister or libidinous, or, for that matter, longer or narrower or unexpectedly twisted. The familiar rebels against those who presume to know it. The map is altered and time is telescoped. Daylight restores things to their normal condition, or is that really their normal condition? The map of the city wrinkles and unfolds, wrinkles and unfolds.
Luc Sante
If you truly believe love conquers all try to give a kiss to a rattlesnake..
Erik Tanghe
...without knowing why, he yielded to the temptation of those lips and flung onto them, eating them, partaking of their sacrament... Eucharist of love with a red host!
Georges Rodenbach
Everything in us presses toward decision, even toward the wrong decision, just to be free of the anxiety that precedes any big step in life.
May Sarton
Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
May Sarton
The determination of the average man is not merely a matter of speculative curiosity; it may be of the most important service to the science of man and the social system. It ought necessarily to precede every other inquiry into social physics, since it is, as it were, the basis. The average man, indeed, is in a nation what the centre of gravity is in a body; it is by having that central point in view that we arrive at the apprehension of all the phenomena of equilibrium and motion.
Adolphe Quetelet
When we allow ourselves to show some patience and take time to listen to the others, we may learn a lot about ourselves. Patience does not endure instant gratification, though, and self-knowledge may take a lifetime. (“I am on my own side, but I can listen “ )
Erik Pevernagie
I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone here and "the house and I resume old conversations".
May Sarton
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.
May Sarton
There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.
May Sarton
Of what avail are my loftiest thoughts if I have ceased to exist?” there are some will ask; to whom others, it may be, will answer, “What becomes of myself if all that I love in my heart and my spirit must die, that my life may be saved?” And are not almost all the morals, and heroism, and virtue of man summed up in that single choice?
Maurice Maeterlinck
War has been the necessary and inevitable consequence of the establishment of a monopoly on security.
Gustave de Molinari
Liberty is only possible on the condition of regularity. We cannot be free and play the game of life without abiding to the rules, but the rules have to be adapted constantly in line with our experiences and the events we encounter. ( “If he doesn't play ball “ )
Erik Pevernagie
If the context is lost and merely bits and pieces remain from a scattered existence, only the connection of anchor points may reinstate a distorted mental balance in an upset life story. ("Lost the global story." )
Erik Pevernagie
In a lifeworld, where we can be what we are, and not what people expect us to be, we can escape a blank and void existence, which is linked to wrecking ennui. Boredom often slips into revulsion and nausea, for not being able to find an identity and not succeeding in acquiring individuality with the quality of authenticity. ("Like a frozen image")
Erik Pevernagie
Some are condemned to remain mere “clock and smart phone watchers”, inasmuch as they are not able to read and interpret the lines of their life or don't even treasure the enchantment of daily captivating moments. If we are not prepared to give some personal time to social time, we walk like blind men through gloomy alleys of our existence. ( " Please. Just a bit of a chat " )
Erik Pevernagie
Should a priest reject relativity because it contains no authoritative exposition on the doctrine of the Trinity? Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes . . . The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses.
Georges Edouard Lemaître
Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Life is an intricate play with actors waiting for an explanation. Each added act confers a new interpretation of the story. ( "Waiting for the pieces to fall into place" )
Erik Pevernagie
For the discovery of self we have to overcome the fear of self, so as to find the marrow ‘within’ and disclose our ‘true’ self. ("Everybody his story")
Erik Pevernagie
Conversation often becomes mere verbal performance and oral horseplay rather than fair-minded communication. (“Juicy rumours “)
Erik Pevernagie
Some feel lucky, if they haven't got to be happy, as they don’t like their frame of mind to be unravelled and prefer to be left well enough alone. ( "C’est quand le bonheur ?" )
Erik Pevernagie
Being happy is harder than being discontent. For happiness we have to roll up our sleeves and knock down houses of cards. Because of this exertion, many prefer to abide by ‘fake’ happiness.( " Happiness blowing in the wind. " )
Erik Pevernagie
We may be happy but just don’t know it yet. Many want to rebuke themselves for not finding the threshold of well being, since they simply haven’t learnt to be nice to themselves and to enjoy the privileged twinklings of life. ("C’est quand le bonheur ?" )
Erik Pevernagie
We should tell ourselves, once and for all, that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power. Herein is no egoism, or pride. To become effectually generous and sincerely humble there must be within us a confident, tranquil, and clear comprehension of all that we owe to ourselves.
Maurice Maeterlinck
People are not dying of lack of money but of lack of esteem and awareness. ("Kein Schwein ruft mich an")
Erik Pevernagie
The mere ambition to write a poem is enough to kill it.
Henri Michaux
Gratitude, the ability to count your blessings, is the ultimate way to connect with the heart.
Baptist de Pape
Attitude is everything.
Diane Von Furstenberg
I always knew the woman i wanted to be- I knew I wanted to be a woman who was independant
Diane Von Furstenburg
We are all the construction of a story and it is only at the end that we can assess the value of the plot. ("Everybody his story")
Erik Pevernagie
Who gave the decisive deathblow to the argument from design on the basis of biological complexity? Both philosophers and biologists are divided on this point (Oppy 1996; Dawkins 1986; Sober 2008). Some have claimed that the biological design argument did not falter until Darwin provided a proper naturalistic explanation for adaptive complexity; others maintain that David Hume had already shattered the argument to pieces by sheer logical force several decades earlier, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume 2007 [1779]). Elliott Sober has been among the philosophers who maintain that, as Hume was not in a position to offer a serious alternative explanation of adaptive complexity, it is hardly surprising that 'intelligent people strongly favored the design hypothesis' (Sober 2000, 36). In his most recent book, however, Sober (2008) carefully develops what he thinks is the most charitable reconstruction of the design argument, and proceeds to show why it is defective for intrinsic reasons (for earlier version of this argument, see Sober 1999, 2002). Sober argues that the design argument can be rejected even without the need to consider alternative explanations for adaptive complexity (Sober 2008, 126): 'To see why the design argument is defective, there is no need to have a view as to whether Darwin’s theory of evolution is true' (Sober 2008, 154).
Maarten Boudry
Is love just a butterfly? Love can tell us so many things about the deep waters of our inner self and the secrecy in the hidden brushwood of our emotions. ("Alpha and Omega")
Erik Pevernagie
Everybody wants what feels good; and if we wish a symphony of attention from a bunch of caring people and a harmony of happy sounds during our lifetime, we must not act like dark horses, saving up our emotions, but be bountiful to all significant others. ( “Axelle Red “)
Erik Pevernagie
We're walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other.
Esther Perel
Private property is redundant. "Public property" is an oxymoron. All legit property is private. If property isn't private it's stolen.
Gustave de Molinari
Just as war is the natural consequence of monopoly, peace is the natural consequence of liberty.
Gustave de Molinari
It always amazes me how people in Europe and the United States can be so indifferent to the speeches of their chancellor or president, for these worlds from the top can be a wind sock for what might happen next.
Paul Rusesabagina
government is legitimate not so much because it represents the 'general will', but because its policies are, ideally and counterfactually, the result of the public deliberation of all who are concerned by the decision
Frédéric Vandenberghe
A promise is a gift and a gift is a symbol of a social relationship. The donor is aware that it creates a link and the recipient identifies it as a mutual bond. A gift, however, is tangible and a promise is not. Eventually, a promise can be expounded as misunderstood, or misheard or it is simply over and done. If misheard, the social bond is to be put into question. If forgotten, it can be reminded but this is embarrassing. If elapsed, it is one of those broken promises that infest countless relationships. ( "Promised me a breeze of freedom" )
Erik Pevernagie
If we really want to know, who we are and recognize our identity, we have to find out the identity of the others. By making friends with the others, we are able to make friends with ourselves. At that moment, we can sense how everything falls into place. ( “ Steps in the unknown" )
Erik Pevernagie
By looking for the unexpected and discerning the surreptitious features in the scenery within us, we apprehend our personality, find out our identity and learn how to cultivate it. Taking care of our fingerprints will be an enduring endeavor. ( "Looking for the unexpected" )
Erik Pevernagie
When life hasn’t got a swing anymore, people may give in to obsessive oniomaniac compulsions, in as much as they are going out of their way to construct a flamboyant life style and change their identity from “don’t-need” to “must-have” consumers, so as to satisfy their gripping buying desire. ("Buying now. Dying later")
Erik Pevernagie
If everything must have a cause, of course, this also applies to God; if God can exist in isolation, then why not the universe?
Etienne Vermeersch
When you open to your heart, your entire world changes--it opens up around you. You see yourself as part of a friendly universe, one that is full of possibility, one that is generating and regenerating a positive energy.
Baptist de Pape
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together ... Speech is too often ... the act of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal ... Speech is of Time, silence is of Eternity ... It is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communication can ever pass from one man to another ...
Maurice Maeterlinck
Your silence exists as does my self gathering. But so does the almost absolute silence of the world's dawning. In such suspension, before every utterance on earth, there is a cloud, an almost immobile air. The plants already breathe, while we still ask ourselves how to speak to each other, without taking breath away from them.
Luce Irigaray
Silence is a 'contingent' phenomenon with positive or negative qualities. When it has to be assessed it needs to be 'contextualized' by exploring its background.
Erik Pevernagie
Have we,” asks Claude de Saint-Martin, the great ‘unknown philosopher,’ “have we advanced one step further on the radiant path of enlightenment, that leads to the simplicity of men?” Let us wait in silence: perhaps ere long we shall be conscious of “the murmur of the gods.
Maurice Maeterlinck
When once misfortune enters a house, silence is in vain.
Maurice Maeterlinck