“I am tired of museums, those cemeteries of the arts.”

Original: Je suis las des musées, — cimetières des arts. — Prefers living art in its original context over fragments preserved in isolation, which he sees as lifeless. · Voyage en Orient, Athens, 18 August 1832 (French)

• Art
• Life
• Travel

“There is a woman at the origin of all great things.”

Original: Il y a une femme à l'origine de toutes les grandes choses. — Credits women with a catalytic role in historical and creative achievements, often through passion or influence. · Histoire des Girondins, 1847 (French)

• History
• Influence
• Women

“I was the first to bring poetry down from Parnassus and to give what was called the Muse, instead of a conventional seven-stringed lyre, the very fibres of the human heart, touched and moved by the innumerable thrills of the soul and of nature.”

Original: Je suis le premier qui ai fait descendre la poésie du Parnasse, et qui ai donné à ce qu'on nommait la muse, au lieu d’une lyre à sept cordes de convention, les fibres mêmes du cœur de l’homme, touchées et émues par les innombrables frissons de l’âme et de la nature. — Lamartine claims to have personalised French poetry by grounding it in authentic human feeling rather than classical c… · Preface to the Méditations poétiques, 2 July 1849 (French)

• Authenticity
• Heart
• Poetry