Reflecții și Maxime vol. I.

Art is not only the revelation of life, but also its solution... without art, that is, without the intervention of fantasy, both life and its experience would be incomplete, vain, formless.

Any literature that refuses to step fraternally between science and philosophy is murderous and suicidal literature.

The categorical absence of justice and truth in art is the same as the absence of art.

Poetry: ... the expression, the soul, and the repertoire of knowledge of a nation, when it is in its infancy.

In the poetic and artistic order, a revealer rarely has a precursor. Any flowering is spontaneous, individual... The artist only manifests himself.

Poetry has no purpose outside Itself... I do not mean to say that poetry does not ennoble morals - let me be clear -, that its final result is not the elevation of man above vulgar interests, that would be absurd... I say that if the poet pursued a moral purpose, he diminished his poetic force...

Poetry cannot, without threatening it with death or decay, assimilate itself to science or morality... The ways of demonstrating truths are different and elsewhere.

There is something sacred in the word, in the Verb, which forbids us to make it a game of chance. To master a language is to practice a kind of sorcery.

A work of art is not immortal unless it is also modern at the time of its creation.

A people expresses its intelligence and soul in its literature.

Every writer, apart from the atmosphere that envelops him, has behind him all the long past of his people.

Any book must compel the reader to take a stand.

The great poet is a great realist, very close to all realities; he takes on all realities, he is very earthly.

Poetry is to the knowledge of Humanity what love is to the other passions. Love is a mystery.

Everyone feels it. But only some of us are given to keep, like a treasure, the vivid memory of what they felt. I think these are the poets. Moreover: I think that alone is why they are poets.

The people have been, and always will be, the great poet of all times and of all nations... Popular poetry is the synthesis of poetry... No one knows better than he how to synthesize, in his works, the beliefs, aspirations and feelings of an age .

Art possesses some mysterious charm that beautifies everything it touches.

You must sacrifice, you must continually sacrifice to your art all the trifles of life.

Modern poetry tries to reach, beyond the rational knowledge that humanity has slowly gained, to a direct, intuitive communication with things.

Poetry and science are identical, if by science we must understand not only the schemes of knowledge and the understanding of the idea hidden in them...

Poetry and science are identical, if we consider them as things understood not only by one of the properties of our soul, but by the fullness of our spiritual being, which we express by the word "reason."

To materialize the spirit to the point of making it palpable; to spiritualize the material to the point of making it disappear: this is the whole secret of art

The role of literature is great, because the very power of the word it works with is great. A true education that takes root in the souls of young people is done through literature, but I mean a perfect literature. And I do not imagine a literature without a perfect moral sense. And the main requirement of art ethics is truth.

Whether it is painting, sculpture, poetry or music, art has no other object than to strip away the practically useful symbols, the conventionally and socially accepted generalities, finally, everything that hides reality from us, in order to put face to face with reality itself...

There are two kinds of books: those that increase in man the love of life and the desire to do good, and those that do not; the former are good, the latter are bad, however splendid and brilliant they may be in their details.

An aphorism is a simple grain of noble metal but it can have the weight of a world... aphoristic literature is the salt of thought...

Any aphorism must be formulated in such a way that it says more than it says.

The original function of the poet: that of constantly extending, through the myths he creates, reality in the story.

The opinion that an artistic work must be liked immediately, without any prior preparation, is an invention of a childish aesthetic.