Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869,) fully Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, was a French poet, politician, historian, statesman, and writer of travel books and popular literature. A diplomat as well, he headed the provisional government of the Second Republic in 1848 and served as minister of foreign affairs.
Born in Mâcon, Lamartine achieved celebrity for his lyrics in Méditations poétiques (1820; Poetic Meditations,) which established him as one of the key figures in the Romantic Movement in French literature.
During the 1830s, Lamartine dedicated time to politics and spoke out in the best interests of the working classes. He also produced many volumes of biography, memoirs, political and historical works, novels, and travel writing. His work, both literary and historical, was widely translated into English from the late 1820s.
Lamartine’s other collections of poetry include the Nouvelles Méditations poétiques (1823; New Poetic Meditations,) the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (1830; Poetic and Religious Harmonies,) and the Recueillements poétiques (1839; Poetic Contemplations.)
Lamartine also published two fragments of a projected epic poem, Jocelyn (1836) and La Chute d’un ange (1838; The Fall of an Angel.) Additionally, in 1835, he published his accounts of a journey to Syria, Lebanon, and the Holy Land.
Lamartine’s historical works include the Histoire des Girondins (1847; History of the Girondins) and the Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 (1849; History of the 1848 Revolution.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Alphonse de Lamartine
Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Experience
Private passions tire and exhaust themselves, public ones never.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Void of freedom, what would virtue be?
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Freedom
Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Poetry, Poets
History teaches everything including the future.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: History
I am the fellow citizen of every being that thinks; my country is Truth.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Truth
The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Dogs
If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Cities
A conscience without God is like a court without a judge.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Conscience
Assassination makes only martyrs, not converts.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Fine manners are a stronger bond than a beautiful face. The former binds; the latter only attracts.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Manners
If God is thy father, man is thy brother.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
The death of a man’s wife is like cutting down an ancient oak that has long shaded the family mansion. Henceforth the glare of the world, with its cares and vicissitudes, falls upon the widower’s heart, and there is nothing to break their force, or shield him from the full weight of misfortune. It is as if his right hand were withered; as if one wing of his angel was broken, and every movement that he made brought him to the ground. His eyes are dimmed and glassy, and when the film of death falls over him, he misses those accustomed tones which might have smoothed his passage to the grave.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Silence,—the applause of real and durable impressions.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Silence
It is admirable to die the victim of one’s faith; it is sad to die the dupe of one’s ambition.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Poetry
Sentiment is the poetry of the imagination.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Emotions
Time! suspend your flight. Propitious hours, suspend your course! Let us savour the swift delights of the most beautiful of our days.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Value of Time, Time Management
The most effective coquetry is innocence.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Man never fastened one end of a chain around the neck of his brother, that God did not fasten the other end round the neck of the oppressor.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Newspapers will ultimately engross all literature—there will be nothing else published but newspapers.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge who sees, listens, and decides.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: History
There is a woman at the beginning of all great things.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Beginning, Achievement, Success & Failure
History is neither more nor less than biography on a large scale.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: History
Before this century shall run out, journalism will be the whole press. Mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light, instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremities of the earth, it will spread from pole to pole, suddenly burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth; it will be the reign of the human mind in all its plenitude; it will not have time to ripen, to accumulate in the form of a book; the book will arrive too late; the only book possible from day to day is a newspaper.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
The greatness of a popular character is less according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his time. Fanatics do not select the cleverest, but the most fanatical leaders; as was evidenced in the choice of Robespierre by the French Jacobins, and in that of Cromwell by the English Puritans.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Habit with its iron sinews, clasps us and leads us day by day.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Habit
In the habits of legal men every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny. It is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect among men.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Lawyers
Always driven toward new shores, or carried hence without hope of return, shall we never, on the ocean of age, cast anchor for even a day?
—Alphonse de Lamartine
The loss of a mother is always severely felt: even though her health may incapacitate her from taking any active part in the care of her family, still she is a sweet rallying point, around which affection and obedience, and a thousand tender endeavors to please, concentrate; and dreary is the blank when such a point is withdrawn.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Mother
Grief and sadness knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger than common joys.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
God has placed the genius of women in their hearts; because the works of this genius are always works of love.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Women have more heart and more imagination than men.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Silence and simplicity obtrude on no one, but are yet two unequaled attractions in woman.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Silence
The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Providence conceals itself in the details of human affairs, but becomes unveiled in the generalities of history.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: History
Let us enjoy the fugitive hour. Man has no harbor, time has no shore, it rushes on and carries us with it.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Present
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
Topics: Love, World, Heroes/Heroism, Absence, Heroes
At twenty, everyone is republican.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
When the press is the echo of sages and reformers, it works well; when it is the echo of turbulent cynics, it merely feeds political excitement.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
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