In France, and at the most important period of our history, Catherine de' Medici has suffered more from popular error than any oth...er woman, unless it be Brunehaut or Frédégonde; while Marie de' Medici, whose every action was prejudicial to France, has escaped the disgrace that should cover her name.... Catherine de' Medici ... saved the throne of France, she maintained [the] Royal authority under circumstances to which more than one great prince would have succumbed. Face to face with such leaders of the factions and ambitions of the houses of Guise and of Bourbon as the two Cardinals de Lorraine and the two "Balafrès," the two Princes de Condé, Queen Jeanne d'Albret, Henri IV, the Connétable de Montmorency, Calvin, the Colignys and Théodore de Bèze, she was forced to put forth the rarest fine qualities, the most essential gifts of statesmanship, under the fire of the Calvinist press.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhym...e, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We (the indivisible divinity that works in us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquito...us in space and firm in time, but we have allowed slight, and eternal, bits of the irrational to form part of its architecture so as to know that it is false.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a social respect necessary in company: you may start your own subject of conversation with modesty, taking care, however,... de ne jamais parler de cordes dans la maison d'un pendu.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the sp...irit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself fe...lt above that of the model.... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul's style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Classical art, in a word, stands for form; romantic art for content. The romantic artist expects people to ask, What has he got to... say? The classical artist expects them to ask, How does he say it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be... called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »