Quotes from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Lightly, caressingly, Marie Antoinette picked up the crown as a gift. She was still too young to know that life never gives anything for nothing, and that a price is always exacted for what fate bestows. She did not think she would have to pay a price. She simply accepted the rights of her royal position and performed no duties in exchange. She wanted to combine two things which are, in actual human experience, incompatible; she wanted to reign and at the same time to enjoy.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Lightly, caressingly, Marie Antoinette picked up the crown as a gift. She was still too young to know that life never gives anything for nothing, and that a price is always exacted for what fate bestows. She did not think she would have to pay a price.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Not one of the European rulers would put himself about in the attempt to save Marie Antoinette, so that Mercy scornfully declared: “They would not have tried to save her even if they had with their own eyes seen her mounting the steps to the guillotine.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“The woman who had been born in an imperial palace, and then, as Queen of France, had had hundreds of rooms in her dwelling house, was now imprisoned in a tiny basement cell, its walls streaming with damp, and its grated window half occluded.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“The desire to ascend in the social scale does not make itself felt until the intellect awakens. Up to the tenth, and often up to the fifteenth year, almost every child belonging to a well-to-do family envies its proletarian schoolmates, to whom so many things are permissible which for the “respectable” are placed under taboo.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“She did what is the most dangerous thing anyone can do in politics; she discoursed without having the most remote acquaintance with the subject; she amateurishly thrust her fingers into every pie, interfering in matters of the utmost moment; she used her overwhelming influence with the King exclusively on behalf of her favorites.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“But this first installation was by no means the last. Every year the Queen had some new fancy for beautifying her miniature kingdom with more highly artificial and more “natural” additions and alterations.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Persistently trying to hoodwink one another, the Emperor, the kings, the princes, and the revolutionaries created an atmosphere of general distrust (like that which poisons the world today); and, in the end, though they had not directly purposed anything of the kind, they involved twenty-five million men in the cataract or a war which lasted for twenty-five years.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“she was never to be allowed to exchange a word with him; and that she was forbidden to pay him a visit even when he was ailing. He was quarantined from her as if she had been suffering from the plague. She was actually forbidden to converse with Simon the shoemaker, the boy’s tutor, from whom she might have gleaned a little information about her son. His seclusion from her was to be unconditional and absolute.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“el derecho impone también deberes y que el amor más puro acaba por fatigarse si no se siente correspondido.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“по наследство се предава единствено кралската корона, но не и свързаните с нея могъщество и величие.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Pero el tiempo es un aliado oportunista a incierto; se colocó siempre en el bando de los fuertes y deja despreciativamente en el atolladero al que confía en él sin moverse,”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“were uproariously demanding relief from their intolerable miseries — in this Potemkin sideshow there prevailed a preposterous and mendacious comfort.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Tutto a te mi guida - Totul ma duce spre tine - cuvinte mai adevarate ca oricand, in acele zile cand Maria Antoaneta se afla la un pas de moarte. Fersen stia ca inima ei a batut pentru dansul pana in ultima clipa. Cu cele cinci cuvinte - ultim salut de despartire in pragul vesniciei, dar si juramant al dragostei statornice in curgerea vremelniciei pamantene - s-a incheiat aceasta incomparabila tragedie in umbra ghilotinei.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

“Come talvolta un artista, per dar prova delle proprie energie creative, cerca di proposito un soggetto esteriormente modesto invece di uno patetico e universale, così di tanto in tanto il destino cerca un eroe insignificante per dimostrare come anche da una materia scadente possa svilupparsi la più alta tensione, da un’anima debole e mal disposta una grandiosa tragedia.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

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“Solo allora saprai che qualsiasi strada è solo una strada, e che non c'è nessun affronto, a se stessi o agli altri, nel lasciarla andare se questo è ciò che il tuo cuore ti dice di fare. Ma il tuo desiderio di insistere sulla strada o di abbandonarla deve essere libero dalla paura e dall'ambizione. Ti avverto. Guarda ogni strada attentamente e deliberatamente. Mettila alla prova tutte le volte che lo ritieni necessario. Quindi poni a te stesso, e a te stesso soltanto, una domanda. Questa è una domanda posta solo da un uomo molto vecchio. Il mio benefattore me l'ha detta una volta quando ero giovane, e il mio sangue era troppo vigoroso perché la comprendessi. Ora la comprendo. Ti dirò cosa è: questa strada ha un cuore? Tutte le strade sono uguali; non portano da nessuna parte. Sono strade che passano attraverso la boscaglia o che vanno nella boscaglia. Nella mia vita posso dire di aver percorso strade lunghe, molto lunghe, ma io non sono da nessuna parte. La domanda del mio benefattore ha adesso un significato. Questa strada ha un cuore? Se lo ha, la strada è buona. Se non lo ha, non serve a niente. Entrambe le strade non portano da nessuna parte; ma una ha un cuore e l'altra no. Una porta a un viaggio lieto; finché la segui sei una sola cosa con essa. L'altra ti farà maledire la tua vita. Una ti rende forte. L'altra ti indebolisce.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

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