Alfred Victor de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. Read full biography of Alfred de Vigny →
Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?
Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?
Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.
We live in an age of universal investigation, and of exploration of the sources of all movements.
On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.
I think, then, that man, after having satisfied his first longing for facts, wanted something fuller - some grouping, some adaptation to his capacity... →
Just as we descend into our consciences to judge of actions which our minds can not weigh, can we not also search in ourselves for the feeling which... →
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... →
Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?
One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at... →
No writer, no matter how gifted, immortalizes himself unless he has crystallized into expressive and original phrase the eternal sentiments and... →
The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.
The acts of the human race on the world's stage have doubtless a coherent unity, but the meaning of the vast tragedy enacted will be visible only... →
Alfred Victor de Vigny (27 March 1797 – 17 September 1863) was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.