An obstacle is not a discouragement. It may become one, but only with our own consent. So long as we refuse to be discouraged, we cannot be discouraged. Maurice Maeterlinck More Quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck More Quotes From Maurice Maeterlinck I have never for one instant seen clearly within myself. How then would you have me judge the deeds of others? Maurice Maeterlinck judgmentdeedsjudging Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers? Maurice Maeterlinck natureflowerhumanity Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness. Maurice Maeterlinck inner-peacehappinessfirsts To be good we must needs have suffered; but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better. Maurice Maeterlinck be-goodsufferingneeds An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. Maurice Maeterlinck happinessinspirationallife The truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods. Maurice Maeterlinck eventsstrongreality When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough. Maurice Maeterlinck sympathyloverelationship Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul. Maurice Maeterlinck flowerjoylong To have known how to change the past into a few saddened smiles-is this not to master the future? Maurice Maeterlinck saddenedmasterspast You do well to have visions of a better life than of every day, but it is the life of every day from which the elements of a better life must come. Maurice Maeterlinck better-lifeelementsvision They think that nothing will happen because they have closed their doors, and they do not know that it is in the soul that things always happen, and that the world does not end at their housedoor. Maurice Maeterlinck atheismdoorsbelieve All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing. A day will come when science will turn upon its error and no longer hesitate to shorten our woes. A day will come when it will dare and act with certainty; when life, grown wiser, will depart silently at its hour, knowing that it has reached its term. Maurice Maeterlinck sciencedeathknowledge I count only the hours that are serene. Maurice Maeterlinck serenehours It is death that is the guide of our life, and our life has no goal but death. Maurice Maeterlinck guidesgoaldeath Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature. Maurice Maeterlinck raysatheismmay (there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent and willful madness, but which, on the other side of our appearances, is probably an action of health. ("Of Immortality") Maurice Maeterlinck escapingmeanlooks All mothers are rich when they love their children. There are no poor mothers, no ugly ones, no old ones. Their love is always the most beautiful of joys. Maurice Maeterlinck mombeautifullove It is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells within others. Maurice Maeterlinck wickednessevillying In the world which we know, among the different and primitive geniuses that preside over the evolution of the several species, there exists not one, excepting that of the dog, that ever gave a thought to the presence of man. Maurice Maeterlinck dogfriendshipmen An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. Maurice Maeterlinck joy-happinessgoodnesshappiness
