59 Quotes by Georges Rodenbach

She sinks. She sinks in holy sadness. Like an Ophelia in tears she sinks

The windows let in a perfect light, a vibrant light such as you get in the north, where a kind of grey gauze turns the sun to silver. And such solitude, such quiet.

Oh, the sudden change of perspective brought about by travel and absence! How different everything was here: the people in the streets, the houses, the color of the air, the sky above the roofs, a low sky, very close, with molded clouds, and which looked as if it had come out of a painting. A unique setting, a subtle atmosphere of silvery greys, the patina of centuries on the old walls—a shimmering marvel for the eyes of a painter. ("The Dead Town")

The only man who is truly happy is a man who has an idée fixe. It takes up his every minute, fills any empty spaces in his thought, sneaks unexpected pleasures into his boredom, gives direction to his idle hours, again and again enlivens the stagnant waters of existence with a surging current.

Bartholomeus went on, 'I wanted to show that these objects are sensitive, suffer at the coming of night, faint at the departure of the last rays, which, by the way, also live in this room; they suffer as much, they fight against the darkness. There you have it. It's the life of things, if you like. The French would call it a nature morte, a picture of inanimate objects. That is not what I'm trying to show. Flemish puts it better: a still life.

Oh, the vanity of plans! Our lives proceed regardless. All the things we work out in such minute detail slip away from us at the last moment, or change.

Yes, it was the love of woman that was the danger, the obstacle on which her dearest wish might founder. How it grieves mothers to tell themselves that, at the very moment it has occurred to them, there already exists a woman who is making her way towards their son from the depths of eternity.

Woman is the window through which we see the world.

But any great happiness is a bright light, a challenge to fate to do its worst. There must not be people who are too happy. They would discourage all the rest, to whom life grants nothing more than unexceptional moments, intermittent joys, roses that have to be watered with tears.