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Quotes by French Authors
"This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter."
"Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?"
"God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray."
"Love is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction."
"It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of."
"I have contacts with the Tour de France which keep me close to cycling."
"In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state."
"Ordinary language carries with it conditions of meaning which it is easy to recognize by classifying the contexts in which the expression is employed in a meaningful manner."
"Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown."
"I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under their own glance."
"Perhaps Europeans are a bit more skeptic whereas Americans are more believers."
"Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance."
"Yes, the work comes out more beautiful from a material that resists the process, verse, marble, onyx, or enamel."
"We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death."
"The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it."
"In my speeches, I always condemned communism, national-socialism and fascism."
"One thing you have to give up is attaching importance to what people see in you."
"In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour."
"I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won't; when you won't, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination."
"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing."
"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step but you have to take it."
"We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom."
"It's clear that prevention will never be sufficient. That's why we need a vaccine that will be safe."
"But on the whole, nothing requires unbearable energy for me, it's just a normal thing."
"The conscience of an artist worthy of the name is like an incurable disease which causes him endless torment but occasionally fills him with silent joy."
"One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart."
"Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act."
"This communication alone, by the comparison of the antagonisms, rivalries, movements which give birth to decisive moments, permits the evolution of the soul, whereby a man realizes himself on earth. It is impossible to be concerned with anything else in art."
"What is new in all of this is that the old poles of attraction represented by nation-states, parties, professions, institutions, and historical traditions are losing their attraction."
"There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly."
"Society is composed of two great classes those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners."
"He raised himself on his hands and looked at Irene's face: the nudity of that feminine body had risen into her face, the body had reabsorbed it, as nature reabsorbs forsaken gardens."
"I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously."
"Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live."
"For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture."
"Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy."
"Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge."
"When France resolved, along with England, to lend assistance in the legitimate defense of Poland, the realization burst on us that a conflict of awesome proportions was inevitable."
"Liberty is the right to do what the law permits."
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