Do we not all spend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet come to pass?. Maurice Maeterlinck More Quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck More Quotes From Maurice Maeterlinck Happiness is rarely absent; it is we that know not of its presence. Maurice Maeterlinck absentknows To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest of unhappiness. Maurice Maeterlinck unhappinessunrestsoul We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them. Maurice Maeterlinck differentlonelinessdark At every crossroad on the way that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. Maurice Maeterlinck fearinspirationallife Happiness will never be any greater than the idea we have of it. Maurice Maeterlinck greaterpositiveideas Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together ... Speech is too often ... the act of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal ... Speech is of Time, silence is of Eternity ... It is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communication can ever pass from one man to another. Maurice Maeterlinck fashioncommunicationreal How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words. Maurice Maeterlinck diminishtrying If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. Maurice Maeterlinck bees-and-honeymenyears We can never judge a soul above the high water mark of our own. Maurice Maeterlinck inspirational-lifejudgingwater It's good to slowly come to the realization that you understand nothing. Maurice Maeterlinck realization The living are just the dead on holiday Maurice Maeterlinck holidaydeath We possess only the happiness we able to understand. Maurice Maeterlinck happyjoyhappiness Nothing in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor is there anything to which beauty clings so readily. Maurice Maeterlinck soulwholeworld Many a happiness in life, a many a disaster, is due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by chance. Maurice Maeterlinck life-happinessdisasterchance Wisdom requires no form; her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is no motionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne. Maurice Maeterlinck thronesflameswisdom All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing. Maurice Maeterlinck paineducationdeath At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past. Maurice Maeterlinck pathmenpast No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her own: and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life, we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey. Maurice Maeterlinck humbleperfectmen Brave old-flowers! Wall-flowers, Gilly flowers, Stocks! For even as the field-flowers, from which a trifle, a ray of beauty, a drop of perfume, divides them, they have charming names, the softest in the language; and each of them, like tiny, art-less ex-votos, or like medals bestowed by the gratitude of men, proudly bears three or four. Maurice Maeterlinck gratitudewallart I have never for one instant seen clearly within myself. How then would you have me judge the deeds of others? Maurice Maeterlinck judgmentdeedsjudging