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Quotes by French Authors
"Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity."
"Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time."
"Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."
"Between my head and my hand, there is always the face of death."
"No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object."
"I've done everything I wanted to do, writing books, learning about things, but I've been swindled all the same because it's never anything more."
"There are very honest people who do not think that they have had a bargain unless they have cheated a merchant."
"The aeroplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth."
"Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy."
"Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men."
"Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant."
"The French have got to understand that a film is so expensive that it can no longer afford to be regional or even national in scope."
"The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding."
"France cannot be France without greatness."
"You can pretend to be serious; but you can't pretend to be witty."
"The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination."
"What's very important is that we build a space that matters in the world, one that operates according to democratic rules, and that small and large countries enjoy a good relationship."
"The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines."
"You find me at work; excuse the dust on my blouse. I sculpt my marble myself."
"A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences."
"The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself."
"There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when th sufferer is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime."
"But an action which wants to serve man ought to be careful not to forget him on the way, if it chooses to fulfill itself blindly, it will lose its meaning or will take on an unforeseen meaning; for the goal is not fixed once & for all; it is defined all along the road which leads up to it."
"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
"There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world."
"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."
"Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being."
"Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness."
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
"If you do not believe you can do it then you have no chance at all."
"Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius."
"What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in."
"A battle won is a battle which we will not acknowledge to be lost."
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