To insist on purity is to baptize instinct, to humanize art, and to deify personality.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Science, Architecture
We cannot carry our father’s corpse with us everywhere we go.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Live-now
I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Humanity, Humankind
Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Art, Artists, Arts
Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Memories, One liners
I don’t want to work. I want to smoke.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Work
Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Joy, Happiness
The plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Nature
Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature’s monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Artists, Art, Arts
“Come to the edge,” he said. They said, “We are afraid.” “Come to the edge,” he said. They came. He pushed them … and they flew!.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Courage, Fear
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist
- Charles Baudelaire French Poet
- Jean de La Fontaine French Poet
- Arthur Rimbaud French Poet
- Alphonse de Lamartine French Poet, Politician, Historian
- Remy de Gourmont French Poet, Writer
- Victor Hugo French Novelist
- Francis Marion Crawford Italian-born American Novelist
- Mario Andretti Italian-born American Sportsperson
- Gian Carlo Menotti Italian-born American Composer
Leave a Reply