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Quotes by French Authors
"The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know."
"I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes."
"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."
"Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them."
"There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice."
"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat."
"Peace is a natural effect of trade."
"Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have."
"The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect."
"I may climb perhaps to no great heights, but I will climb alone."
"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."
"Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance."
"A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short."
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants."
"Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows."
"I do not believe in pure idioms. I think there is naturally a desire, for whoever speaks or writes, to sign in an idiomatic, irreplaceable manner."
"I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error."
"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
"We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter."
"Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing."
"Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can."
"The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies."
"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question."
"It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr."
"There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees."
"My soul's a burden to me, I've had enough of it. I'm eager to be in that country, where the sun kills every question. I don't belong here."
"Tragedy is restful: and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it."
"To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis."
"I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom."
"Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants."
"We also had to bring with us some desired scientific equipment over to the station as well as assemble new machines. For that, I had to conduct two space walks."
"I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise."
"It may be said that modern Europe with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are beautiful, acts ill and honors what is ill."
"Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth."
"The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek."
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