Quotes by Stéphane Mallarmé

“I can see my reflection like that of an angel!And I feel that I am dying, and, through the mediumOf art or of mystical experience, I want to be reborn,Wearing my dream like a diadem, in some better landWhere beauty flourishes.””

“Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul. So sublime, my friend, that I want to gaze upon matter, fully conscious that it exists, and yet launching itself madly into Dream, despite its knowledge that Dream has no existence, extolling the Soul and all the divine impressions of that kind which have collected within us from the beginning of time and proclaiming, in the face of the Void which is truth, these glorious lies!””

“I go to see the shadow you have become.””

“...for we are always at one with the instrument of our magic spells.””

“I see myself––an angel!––and I die;the window may be art or mysticism, yetI long for rebirth in the former skywhere Beauty blooms, my dream being my coronet!But, alas, our low World is suzerain!even in this retreat it can be tooloathsome––till the foul vomit of the Inanedrives me to stop my nose before the blue.O Self familiar with these bitter things,can the glass outraged by that monster beshattered? can I flee with my featherless wings––and risk falling through all eternity?””

“You made the sobbing white of lilies too,tumbling lightly across a sea of sighs ontheir dreamy way to weeping moonlight throughthe azure incense of the pale horizon!””

“« Un grand écrivain se remarque au nombre de pages qu'il ne publie pas. »””

“وجدت الجمال حين وجدت العدم””

“Tout, au monde, existe pour aboutir à un livre””

“Si tu veux nous nous aimeronsAvec tes lèvres sans le direCette rose ne l'interrompsQu'à verser un silence pireJamais de chants ne lancent promptsLe scintillement du sourireSi tu veux nous nous aimeronsAvec tes lèvres sans le dire Muet muet entre les rondsSylphe dans la pourpre d'empireUn baiser flambant se déchireJusqu'aux pointe des aileronsSi tu veux nous nous aimerons.””

“The poet Mallarmé listened to the painter Degas complaining about his inability to write poems even though “he was full of ideas.” “My dear Degas,” Mallarmé responded, “poems are not made out of ideas. They’re made out of words.””

“From golden showers of the ancient skies,On the first day, and the eternal snow of stars,You once unfastened giant calyxesFor the young earth still innocent of scars: Young gladioli with the necks of swans,Laurels divine, of exiled souls the dream,Vermilion as the modesty of dawnsTrod by the footsteps of the seraphim; The hyacinth, the myrtle gleaming bright,And, like the flesh of woman, the cruel rose,Hérodiade blooming in the garden light,She that from wild and radiant blood arose! And made the sobbing whiteness of the lilyThat skims a sea of sighs, and as it wendsThrough the blue incense of horizons, palelyToward the weeping moon in dreams ascends! Hosanna on the lute and in the censers,Lady, and of our purgatorial groves!Through heavenly evenings let the echoes answer,Sparkling haloes, glances of rapturous love! Mother, who in your strong and righteous bosom,Formed calyxes balancing the future flask,Capacious flowers with the deadly balsamFor the weary poet withering on the husk.””

“THE BOOK: A SPIRITUAL INSTRUMENT I am the author of a statement to which there have been varying reactions, including praise and blame, and which I shall make again in the present article. Briefly, it is this: all earthly existence must ultimately be contained in a book. It terrifies me to think of the qualities (among them genius, certainly) which the author of such a work will have to possess. I am one of the unpossessed. We will let that pass and imagine that it bears no author’s name. What, then, will the work itself be? I answer: a hymn, all harmony and joy; an immaculate grouping of universal relationships come together for some miraculous and glittering occasion. Man’s duty is to observe with the eyes of the divinity; for if his connection with that divinity is to be made clear, it can be expressed only by the pages of the open book in front of him.””