Alphonse de Lamartine
Overview
 
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869) was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic
French Second Republic
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...

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Lamartine was born in Mâcon
Mâcon
Mâcon is a small city in central France. It is prefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department, in the region of Bourgogne, and the capital of the Mâconnais district. Mâcon is home to over 35,000 residents, called Mâconnais.-Geography:...

, Burgundy on 21 October 1790. His family was part of the French provincial nobility, and he spent his youth at the family estate. Lamartine is famous for his partly autobiographical
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 poem, "Le Lac" ("The Lake"), which describes in retrospect the fervent love shared by a couple from the point of view of the bereaved man.
Quotations

I say to this night: "Pass more slowly"; and the dawn will come to dispel the night.

The Lake, st. 8 (1820)

Let us love the passing hour, let us hurry up and enjoy our time.

The Lake, st. 9 (1820)

Love alone was left, as a great image of a dream that was erased.

The Valley, st. 9 (1820)

Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.

Méditations Poétiques, Sermon 2 (1820)

What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?

Méditations Poétiques, Second series, Sermon 15 (1820)

Experience is the only prophesy of wise men.

Speech at Mâcon (1847)

To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.

Graziella, Pt. IV, ch. 5 (1849)

The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.

From Count d'Orsay's Letter to John Forster (1850)

Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.

"L'Isolement", Méditations Poétiques (1820)

 
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