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Quotes by French Authors
"For future exploration, when we have the objective of going to the Moon, it is important to have several possibilities to go there, and within this framework of cooperation to have our own access to orbit around the Moon."
"With the piano I'm completely in control of the gestural situation-not that I'm going to play the piece myself, but I know what's difficult, what's impossible."
"The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct."
"If you value a man's regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper - and despise it."
"Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement."
"That is an important part of my success. Another big part of my success is that I hated not to finish a race."
"I am very much afraid of definitions, and yet one is almost forced to make them. One must take care, too, not to be inhibited by them."
"Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty."
"These irresponsible acts, which cannot have any justification whatsoever, are to be fully condemned. In these appalling circumstances, I want to offer you the most sincere condolences, both in my name and in that of the French people."
"I want just to be happy and peaceful. And that's not always the case when you're married."
"Europe started out with six countries; three small countries and three large countries."
"If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!"
"We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart."
"Commitment is an act, not a word."
"I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?"
"Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage."
"It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details."
"The Princess of Parma was a Courvoisier in that she was incapable of innovation in social matters, but unlike the Courvoisiers in that the surprises the Duchesse de Guermantes perpetually held in store for her engendered in her not, as in them, antipathy but a sense of wonder."
"Opportunities are often things you haven't noticed the first time around."
"Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites."
"There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name applied science. There are science and the applications of science, bound together as the fruit of the tree which bears it."
"The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy."
"The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles."
"Memory, instead of being a duplicate, always present before one's eyes, of the various events of one's life, is rather a void from which at odd moments a chance resemblance enables ones to resuscitate dead recollections, but even then, there are innumerable little details which have not fallen into that potential reservoir of memory, and which will remain for ever unverifiable."
"What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?"
"We always long for the forbidden things, and desire what is denied us."
"What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth."
"Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance."
"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful."
"What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them."
"The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice."
"The Republic is open and tolerant but also knows how and when to be firm and make its values respected."
"Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow."
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