Denis De Rougemont Quotes

#1. Passion and marriage are essentially irreconcilable. Their origins and their ends make them mutually exclusive. Their co-existence in our midst constantly raises insoluble problems, and the strife thereby engendered constitutes a persistent danger for every one of our social safeguards.

Denis De Rougemont

#2. The knowledge of true danger may cure us of false fears

Denis De Rougemont

#3. Happiness is indeed a Eurydice, vanishing as soon as gazed upon. It can exist only in acceptance, and succumbs as soon as it is laid claim to.

Denis De Rougemont

#4. Fallen myths can instill venom.

Denis De Rougemont

#5. Why should neurotic, selfish, immature people suddenly become angels when they fall in love ... ?

Denis De Rougemont

#6. Social confusion has now reached a point at which the pursuit of immorality turns out to be more exhausting than compliance with the old moral codes.

Denis De Rougemont

#7. The more a man is given to sentiment ,the more likely is he to be wordy and to speak well.

Denis De Rougemont

#8. To love in the sense of passion-love is the contrary of to live. It is an impoverishment of one's being, an askesis without sequel, an inability to enjoy the present without imagining it as absent, a never-ending flight from possession.

Denis De Rougemont

#9. Romance only comes into existence where love is fatal, frowned upon and doomed by life itself.

Denis De Rougemont

#10. Animals do feel like us, also joy, love, fear and pain but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to take their part and continue to resist the people who profit by them, who slaughter them and who torture them.

Denis De Rougemont

#11. Love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god.

Denis De Rougemont

#12. What stirs lyrical poets to their finest flights is neither the delight of the senses nor the fruitful contentment of the settled couple; not the satisfaction of love, but its passion. And passion means suffering.

Denis De Rougemont

#13. This peculiar connexion between a certain view of woman and the European conception of war has had profound consequences for morality, education, and politics.

Denis De Rougemont

#14. A life allied with mine, for the rest of our lives ... that is the miracle of marriage.

Denis De Rougemont