Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of love be not theirs; for the true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. He who sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

Unless we close our eyes we are always deceived.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We all live in the sublime. Where else can we live? That is the only place of life.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We all live in the sublime. Where else can we live? That is the only place of life.… All that happens to us is divinely great, and we are always in the center of a great world. But we must accustom ourselves to live like an angel who has just sprung to life, like a woman who loves, or a man on the point of death. If you knew that you were going to die to-night, or merely that you would have to go away and never return, would you, looking upon men and things for the last time, see them in the same light that you have hitherto seen them? Would you not love as you never yet have loved?

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We are not wrong, perhaps, to be heedful of justice in the midst of a universe that heeds not at all; as the bee is not wrong to make honey in a world that itself can make none. But we are wrong to desire an external justice, since we know that it does not exist. Let that which is in us suffice. All is forever being weighed and judged in our soul. It is we who shall judge ourselves; or rather, our happiness is our judge.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We believe we have dived to the most unfathomable depths, and when we reappear on the surface, the drop of water that glistens on our trembling fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it came. We believe we have discovered a grotto that is stored with bewildering treasure; we come back to the light of day, and the gems we have brought are false – mere pieces of glass – and yet does the treasure shine on, unceasingly, in the darkness!

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We should tell ourselves, once and for all, that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power. Herein is no egoism, or pride. To become effectually generous and sincerely humble there must be within us a confident, tranquil, and clear comprehension of all that we owe to ourselves.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

We suffer but little from suffering itself; but from the manner wherein we accept it overwhelming sorrow may spring. We are wrong in believing that it comes from without. For indeed we create it within us, out of our very substance.

— Maurice Maeterlinck

What man is there that does not laboriously though all unconsciously himself fashion the sorrow that is to be the pivot of his life.

— Maurice Maeterlinck