I have seen so many lands vanish in...

I have seen so many lands vanish in my wake, torn down like stage sets. What survives of them? An image as fleeting as a dream: whatever beauties I discovered, I already knew by heart.

- Gérard de Nerval

Selected Writings

beauties dream heart lands stage

Other quotes by Gérard de Nerval

Man, free thinker!Do you imagine you alone think in this world where life is blazing forth in all things?You are free to avail yourself of the forces you command, but the universe has gone missing from your prescriptions.

- Gérard de Nerval

Illusions fall away one after another like the husks of a fruit, and that fruit is experience. It is bitter to the taste, but there is fortitude to be found in gall – forgive me my old-fashioned turns of phrase.

- Gérard de Nerval

Childhood memories surge back more vividly midway through life – like some palimpsest whose original text suddenly reappears after the manuscript has been chemically treated.

- Gérard de Nerval

I am the other.

- Gérard de Nerval

Everything is alive, everything is in motion, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays that emanate from me or from others flow directly through the infinite chain of creation whose transparent network is in continuous communication with the planets and the stars. A captive here on earth for the moment, I commune with the chorus of stars and they join in my sorrows and joys.

- Gérard de Nerval

One third of our life is spent in sleep. It is consolation for the troubles of our waking hours or atonement for their pleasures; but I have never experienced sleep to be mere repose. After a few minutes lethargy, a new life begins, untrammeled by the limitations of time and space, and undoubtedly similar to that which awaits us after death...

- Gérard de Nerval

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