Top 22 Quotes & Sayings by Gerard De Nerval

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French writer Gerard De Nerval.

Last updated on April 14, 2025.

Gérard de Nerval was the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, a major figure of French romanticism, best known for his novellas and poems, especially the collection Les Filles du feu, which included the novella Sylvie and the poem "El Desdichado". Through his translations, Nerval played a major role in introducing French readers to the works of German Romantic authors, including Klopstock, Schiller, Bürger and Goethe. His later work merged poetry and journalism in a fictional context and influenced Marcel Proust. His last novella, Aurélia, influenced André Breton and Surrealism.

French - Writer | May 22, 1808 - January 26, 1855

Source: Wikipedia

The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life! And yet can we cast out of our spirits all the good or evil poured into them by so many learned generations? Ignorance cannot be learned.

Gerard De Nerval

Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.

Gerard De Nerval

Our dreams are a second life. I have never been able to penetrate without a shudder those ivory or horned gates which separate us from the invisible world.

Gerard De Nerval

It has been rightly said that nothing is unimportant, nothing powerless in the universe; a single atom can dissolve everything, and save everything! What terror! There lies the eternal distinction between good and evil.

Gerard De Nerval

God is dead!

Gerard De Nerval

The first moments of sleep are an image of death; a hazy torpor grips our thoughts and it becomes impossible for us to determine the exact instant when the 'I,' under another form, continues the task of existence.

Gerard De Nerval

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.

Gerard De Nerval

Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog? ... or a cat, or a gazelle, or a lion, or any other animal one chooses to take for a walk? I have a liking for lobsters. They are peaceful, serious creatures. ... Goethe had an aversion to dogs, and he wasn't mad. They know the secrets of the sea, they don't bark.

Gerard De Nerval

The only refuge left to us was the poet's ivory tower, which we climbed, ever higher, to isolate ourselves from the mob.

Gerard De Nerval

The key to success is simple. Make people dream.

Gerard De Nerval

The first moments of sleep are an image of death; a hazy torpor grips our thoughts and it becomes impossible for us to determine the exact instant when the I, under another form, continues the task of existence.

Gerard De Nerval

I have always differentiated between two types of friends; those who want proofs of friendship, and those who do not. One kind loves me for myself and the others for themselves.

Gerard De Nerval

The intoxication of the faro drinker only shows itself at first by an increase in noise which is only deafening, and finally by a silent deterioration of the mind.

Gerard De Nerval

Our dreams are a second life.

Gerard De Nerval

L'imagination m'apportait des délices infinies. En recouvrant ce que les hommes appellent la raison, faudra-t-il regretter de les avoir perdues...? My imagination gave me infinite delight. In recovering what men call reason, do I have to regret the loss of these joys?

Gerard De Nerval

The enthusiasm of old men is singularly like that of infancy.

Gerard De Nerval

?stanbul is a magical seal which unites Europe and Asia since the ancient times. Without a doubt, Istanbul is certainly the most beautiful place of the world.

Gerard De Nerval

How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it? Everything lives, moves, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays, emanating either from myself or from others, cross the limitless chain of created things unimpeded; it is a transparent network that covers the world, and its slender threads communicate themselves by degrees to the planets and stars. Captive now upon earth, I commune with the chorus of the stars who share in my joys and sorrows.

Gerard De Nerval

Man, do you think yours is the only soul? Look around you. Everything that you see quivers with being. Though your thoughts are free, one thing you do not think about: the whole. Beasts have a mind; respect it. Flowers too- look at one. Nature brought forth each petal. There is a mystery that sleeps in metal. Everything feels, and has power over you.

Gerard De Nerval

Nothing is indifferent, nothing is powerless in the universe; an atom might destroy everything, an atom might save everything!

Gerard De Nerval

I have never felt any rest in sleep. For a few seconds I am numbed, then a new life begins, freed from the conditions of time and space, and doubtless similar to that state which awaits us after death. Who knows if there is not some link between those two existences and if it is not possible for the soul to unite them now?

Gerard De Nerval

The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet; the second, an imbecile.

Gerard De Nerval

Top 22 Quotes & Sayings by Gerard De Nerval

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