"There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved."
About George Sand
George Sand, born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, was a trailblazing French novelist and a prominent figure in the feminist movement of the 19th century. Her literary contributions, particularly in works like 'Indiana', challenged the traditional roles of women in society and explored themes of love, freedom, and individuality. Sand's writing often reflected her own tumultuous life, marked by passionate affairs and a defiance of societal norms. In her quote, 'There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved', Sand encapsulates her belief in the transformative power of love, suggesting that emotional connections are fundamental to human happiness. This perspective not only reveals her personal values but also critiques the restrictive societal expectations placed on women of her time. Sand's ideas about freedom are poignantly expressed in her assertion, 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me', which symbolizes her rejection of the constraints imposed by society. Her commitment to advocating for women's rights and her exploration of complex emotional landscapes continue to resonate today, making her quotes and ideas relevant in contemporary discussions about gender and freedom.
Quote collection
176 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved."
"Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness."
"The cigar is the perfect complement to an elegant lifestyle."
"Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one's talent, and one's inner happiness."
"We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire."
"Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius."
"Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views."
"It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides."
"The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession."
"Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm: it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument."
"You may impose silence upon me, but you can not prevent me from thinking."
"Butterflies are but flowers that blew away one sunny day when Nature was feeling at her most inventive and fertile."
"I'm beginning to believe that there are angels disguised as men who pass themselves off as such and who inhabit the earth for a while to console and lift up with them toward heaven the poor, exhausted and saddened souls who were ready to perish here below."
"The beauty that addresses itself to the eyes is only the spell of the moment; the eye of the body is not always that of the soul."
"The intellect seeks, the heart finds."
"Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness."
"We must love stupid people better than ourselves; are they not the really unfortunate ones of this world? Do not people without taste and without ideal grow constantly weary, rejoicing in nothing, and being quite useless here below?"
"Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it."
"Anything we destroy in ourselves we destroy in others. Our falls lower others and throw them down; we owe it to our fellows to keep upright, in order that they too may keep their feet."
"If people were not wicked I should not mind their being stupid; but, to our misfortune, they are both."