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Quotes by French Authors

"I have been back in Paris for two weeks. Nothing new. Life is still bitter."
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Camille Claudel
"I have been back in Paris for two weeks. Nothing new. Life is still bitter."
"The United States, for a French citizen, is a friend, an ally, to whom we owe, along with most Europeans, our freedom."
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Jean-Pierre Raffarin
"The United States, for a French citizen, is a friend, an ally, to whom we owe, along with most Europeans, our freedom."
"You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable."
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Marguerite Duras
"You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable."
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44
"Already at the origin of the species man was equal to what he was destined to become."
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Jean Rostand
"Already at the origin of the species man was equal to what he was destined to become."
Man,
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44
"When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves."
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Gustave Courbet
"When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves."
"Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and colour are not distinct, everything in nature is coloured."
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Paul Cezanne
"Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and colour are not distinct, everything in nature is coloured."
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44
"In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent."
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Roman Polanski
"In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent."
"No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings."
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Denis Diderot
"No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings."
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44
"I would rather do movies because I'm very lazy and the hours are much easier."
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Michael Vartan
"I would rather do movies because I'm very lazy and the hours are much easier."
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44
"How is it that, once victory took form and the horrible spectacle of the extermination camps was revealed, we could have shamelessly broken the promises given to the peoples in those years of ordeal?"
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Rene Cassin
"How is it that, once victory took form and the horrible spectacle of the extermination camps was revealed, we could have shamelessly broken the promises given to the peoples in those years of ordeal?"
"God's only excuse is that he does not exist."
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Stendhal
"God's only excuse is that he does not exist."
God,
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44
"I am not young but I feel young. The day I feel old, I will go to bed and stay there. J'aime la vie! I feel that to live is a wonderful thing."
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Coco Chanel
"I am not young but I feel young. The day I feel old, I will go to bed and stay there. J'aime la vie! I feel that to live is a wonderful thing."
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44
"Some men like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path."
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Jean Anouilh
"Some men like to make a little garden out of life and walk down a path."
"Asthma research is a lot better and new medicines are always coming out to help young people."
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Dominique Wilkins
"Asthma research is a lot better and new medicines are always coming out to help young people."
"When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or translate me. Such is my fate."
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Jean Savarin
"When I need a word and do not find it in French, I select it from other tongues, and the reader has either to understand or translate me. Such is my fate."
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44
"Beauty is a precious trace that eternity causes to appear to us and that it takes away from us. A manifestation of eternity, and a sign of death as well."
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Eugene Ionesco
"Beauty is a precious trace that eternity causes to appear to us and that it takes away from us. A manifestation of eternity, and a sign of death as well."
"Our experience is composed rather of illusions that of wisdom acquired."
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Joseph Roux
"Our experience is composed rather of illusions that of wisdom acquired."
"I'm interested in everthing but passionate about nothing."
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Jeanne Calment
"I'm interested in everthing but passionate about nothing."
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44
"Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself."
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Andre Breton
"Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself."
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44
"In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating."
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Michel Foucault
"In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating."
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44
"There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past."
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Jean Rostand
"There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past."
"I think you have to pay for love with bitter tears."
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Edith Piaf
"I think you have to pay for love with bitter tears."
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44
"Because just as arms have no force outside if there is no counsel within a house, study is vain and counsel useless that is not put to virtuous effect when the time calls."
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Francois Rabelais
"Because just as arms have no force outside if there is no counsel within a house, study is vain and counsel useless that is not put to virtuous effect when the time calls."
"Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business."
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Paul Valery
"Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business."
"I am an artist... I am here to live out loud."
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Emile Zola
"I am an artist... I am here to live out loud."
"What perhaps should receive more attention is the effect of the treatment on the virus."
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Luc Montagnier
"What perhaps should receive more attention is the effect of the treatment on the virus."
"Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse."
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Jean-Francois Lyotard
"Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse."
"If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the phenomenon had been predicted, that it is governed by the laws."
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Henri Poincare
"If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the phenomenon had been predicted, that it is governed by the laws."
"Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom."
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Henri Bergson
"Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom."
"We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best."
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Anatole France
"We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best."
"There is no doubt that this film is autobiographical, but at the same time it also tries to portray an ordinary couple in a language that everyone can understand."
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Sophie Marceau
"There is no doubt that this film is autobiographical, but at the same time it also tries to portray an ordinary couple in a language that everyone can understand."
"When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become."
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Louis Pasteur
"When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become."
"When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties."
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Marquis de Lafayette
"When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties."
"The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault."
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Jacques Delors
"The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault."
"I gradually work myself into a frenzy as the shoot approaches, while we're choosing the costumes or working with the make-up artist. I'm not so much interested in my character as the film itself."
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Jeanne Moreau
"I gradually work myself into a frenzy as the shoot approaches, while we're choosing the costumes or working with the make-up artist. I'm not so much interested in my character as the film itself."
"Perhaps it is impossible to understand one's own face. Or perhaps it is because I am a single man? People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have no friends. Is that why my flesh is so naked?"
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Jean-Paul Sartre
"Perhaps it is impossible to understand one's own face. Or perhaps it is because I am a single man? People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have no friends. Is that why my flesh is so naked?"
"Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness."
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Andre Gide
"Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness."
"Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance."
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Charles de Gaulle
"Authority doesn't work without prestige, or prestige without distance."
"In order to conquer, what we need is to dare, still to dare, and always to dare."
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Georges Jacques Danton
"In order to conquer, what we need is to dare, still to dare, and always to dare."
"Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious."
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Paul Valery
"Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious."
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"I chose to treat the homosexuality like I would treat any other form of sexuality."
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Barbet Schroeder
"I chose to treat the homosexuality like I would treat any other form of sexuality."
"I was less successful in my attempts to effect preventive vaccination against typhus by using the virus and in trying to produce large quantities of serum using large animals."
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Charles Nicole
"I was less successful in my attempts to effect preventive vaccination against typhus by using the virus and in trying to produce large quantities of serum using large animals."
"Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker."
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Jean de la Bruyere
"Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker."
"As is known, it is in the realm of experience inaugurated by psychoanalysis that we may grasp along what imaginary lines the human organism, in the most intimate recesses of its being, manifests its capture in a symbolic dimension."
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Jacques Lacan
"As is known, it is in the realm of experience inaugurated by psychoanalysis that we may grasp along what imaginary lines the human organism, in the most intimate recesses of its being, manifests its capture in a symbolic dimension."
"I have to do what's right."
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Herve Villechaize
"I have to do what's right."
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44
"Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul."
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Henri Matisse
"Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul."
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44
"The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later."
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Louis Aragon
"The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later."
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44
"To be a professional tennis player you need to put in these sort of hours."
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Guy Forget
"To be a professional tennis player you need to put in these sort of hours."
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44
"We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us."
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld
"We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us."
"But this emphasis would be lavished in vain, if it served, in your opinion, only to abstract a general type from phenomena whose particularity in our work would remain the essential thing for you, and whose original arrangement could be broken up only artificially."
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Jacques Lacan
"But this emphasis would be lavished in vain, if it served, in your opinion, only to abstract a general type from phenomena whose particularity in our work would remain the essential thing for you, and whose original arrangement could be broken up only artificially."
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