The true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. Maurice Maeterlinck More Quotes by Maurice Maeterlinck More Quotes From Maurice Maeterlinck The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all. Maurice Maeterlinck progress numbers people Men's weaknesses are often necessary to the purposes of life. Maurice Maeterlinck weakness purpose men To disdain today is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood. Maurice Maeterlinck misunderstood yesterday today The future is a world limited by ourselves; in it we discover only what concerns us and, sometimes, by chance, what interests those whom we love the most. Maurice Maeterlinck future chance world The manner in which the hours of freedom are spent determines, no less than labor and war, the moral worth of a nation. Maurice Maeterlinck hours moral war Each man has to seek out his own special aptitude for a higher life in the midst of the humble and inevitable reality of daily existence. Than this, there can be no nobler aim in life. Maurice Maeterlinck humble life reality It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom. Maurice Maeterlinck wisdom justice spring There is no soul that does not respond to love, for the soul of man is a guest that has gone hungry these centuries back. Maurice Maeterlinck soul love men The hour of justice does not strike On the dials of this world. Maurice Maeterlinck doe justice world At every crossway on the path that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past. Let us have no fear that the fair towers of former days be sufficiently defended. The least that the most timid among us can do is not to add to the immense dead weight that nature drags along. Maurice Maeterlinck persistence men past He who sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness. Maurice Maeterlinck love-at-first-sight eye darkness As soon as we put something into words, we devalue it in a strange way. We think we have plunged into the depths of the abyss, and when we return to the surface the drop of water on our pale fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it comes. We delude ourselves that we have discovered a wonderful treasure trove, and when we return to the light of day we find that we have brought back only false stones and shards of glass; and yet the treasure goes on glimmering in the dark, unaltered. Maurice Maeterlinck glasses dark thinking It is far more important that one's life should be perceived than that it should be transformed; for no sooner has it been perceived, than it transforms itself of its own accord. Maurice Maeterlinck accord important should 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 obstacles may long The thoughts you think will irradiate you as though you are a transparent vase. Maurice Maeterlinck vases motivational thinking The souls of all our brethren are ever hovering about us, craving for a caress, and only waiting for the signal. Maurice Maeterlinck hovering soul waiting Justice is the very last thing of all wherewith the universe concerns itself. It is equilibrium that absorbs its attention. Maurice Maeterlinck lasts justice attention If you love yourself meanly, childishly, timidly, even so shall you love your neighbor. Maurice Maeterlinck neighbor ifs love-you I have done what I could do in life, and if I could not do better, I did not deserve it. In vain I have tried to step beyond what bound me. Maurice Maeterlinck done acceptance steps Every year, in November, at the season that follows the hour of the dead, the crowning and majestic hours of autumn, I go to visit the chrysanthemums ... They are indeed, the most universal, the most diverse of flowers. Maurice Maeterlinck autumn flower years