George Sand

About George Sand

“J'ai un but, une tâche, disons le mot, une passion. Le métier d'écrire en est une violente et presque indestructible.”
— I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one.
“Nous ne pouvons arracher une seule page de notre vie, mais nous pouvons jeter le livre au feu.”
— We cannot tear a single page from our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire.
“L'art pour l'art est un vain mot. L'art pour le vrai, l'art pour le beau et le bon, voilà la religion que je cherche....”
— Art for the sake of art itself is an idle sentence. Art for the sake of truth, for the sake of what is beautiful and good — that is the creed I seek.
“Je vois sur leurs nobles fronts le sceau du Seigneur, car ils sont nés rois de la terre bien mieux que ceux qui la possèdent pour l'avoir payée.”
— I see upon their noble brows the seal of the Lord, for they were born kings of the earth far more truly than those who possess it only from having bought it.
“Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le compliqué.”
— The truth is too simple: one must always get there by a complicated route.
“He . . . saw below him an ox-cart, painfully approaching, the driver smoking in order to keep warm.”
— The Marquis de Villemer, translated by Ralph Keeler (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1871), ch. 25

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.