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Quotes by French Authors
"We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine."
"Working with the same people is so much quicker and frees up your energy for other things."
"The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . ."
"I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: 'I am busy with matters of consequence!' And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man - he is a mushroom!"
"In the theatre the audience wants to be surprised - but by things that they expect."
"So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination."
"The demographic weight of countries such as China and India exercise a massive pressure on our wages and salaries. They have accomplished massive technological advances and the revolution in information technology has reduced the costs of transport."
"Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking."
"Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it."
"Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to."
"But when ill indeed, Even dismissing the doctor don't always succeed."
"Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision."
"I am looking for friends. What does that mean -- tame?""It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties." "To establish ties?" "Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...."
"Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread."
"It is said that many children who live in the central provinces, away from the ocean, have a great longing to see it. I who had never been away from the monotonous country surrounding us looked forward eagerly to seeing the mountains."
"Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never."
"There are men who would quickly love each other if once they were speak to each other; for when they spoke they would discover that their souls had only separated by phantoms and delusions."
"People always complain about their memories, never about their minds."
"My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking."
"The more English is heard in the world, the more gratifying it seems to speak French, and above all to know the culture of our country. They find a kind of French social grace in the language and culture."
"In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake."
"Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large.If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
"The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is Possible."
"All men have an equal right to the free development of their faculties; they have an equal right to the impartial protection of the state; but it is not true, it is against all the laws of reason and equity, it is against the eternal nature of things."
"I like cinema. I am very fond of it. But from time to time I feel like having some time on my own."
"In this connection, faith and experience teach us many truths by means of the short-cut of authority and by the proofs of very pleasant and agreeable feelings."
"There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought."
"There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors... But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity."
"Films can only be made by by-passing the will of those who appear in them, using not what they do, but what they are."
"Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who when their turn comes will manufacture professors."
"Model. Two mobile eyes in a mobile head, itself on a mobile body."
"My father had left behind an old piano. My sister was already going to school, my mother was out working, and I stayed at home alone with my adorable grandmother who understood nothing I said. It was so boring that I stayed at the piano all day long, and that saved my life."
"After a hundred years the son of the King then reigning, who was of another family from that of the sleeping Princess, was a-hunting on that side of the country, and he asked what those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood."
"All truly historical peoples have an idea they must realize, and when they have sufficiently exploited it at home, they export it, in a certain way, by war; they make it tour the world."
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