Quotes by French Authors - Page 33

In love we often doubt what we most believe.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition.
Max Ernst
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
Albert Camus
It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror.
Jean Lorrain
I myself am an absolute abyss.
Antonin Artaud
The more civilization progresses, the hollower it becomes and the easier to destroy it.
Empress Eugenie of France
My conduct with my friends is motivated: each being is, I believe, incapable on his own, of going to the end of being. If he tries, he is submerged within a "private being" which has meaning only for himself. Now there is no meaning for a lone individual: bing alone would of itself reject the "private being" if it saw it as such (if I wish my life to have meaning for me, it is necessary that it have meaning for others: no one would dare give to life a meaning which he alone would perceive, from which life in its entirety would escape, except within himself). At the extreme limit of the "possible", it is true, there is nonsense . . . but only of that which had a prior sense: this is fulguration, even "apotheosis" of nonsense. But I don't attain the extreme limit on my own and, in actual fact, I can't believe the extreme limit attained, for I never remain there. If I had to be the only one having attained it (assuming that I had . . .), it would be as thought it had not occurred. For if there subsisted a satisfaction, as small as I can imagine it to be, it would distance me as much from the extreme limit. I cannot for a moment cease to incite myself to attain the extreme limit, and cannot make a distinction between myself and those with whom I desire to communicate.~George Bataille, "Inner Experience" pg. 42
Georges Bataille
Reality is not art, but a realist art is one that can create an integral aesthetic of reality.
André Bazin
where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?
Victor Hugo
It is true, Monsieur," Raoule went on, shrugging her shoulders, "that I have had lovers in my life as I have books in my library, to know, to study. But I have had no passion, I have not written my own book yet! I always found myself alone when we were two. One is not weak when one remains master of one's self in the midst of the most stupefying pleasures.
Rachilde
My attraction to drugs is based on an immense desire to annihilate awareness.
Anaïs Nin
No two moments are identical in a conscious being
Henri Bergson
At thirty a man should know himself like the palm of his hand know the exact number of his defects and qualities. ... And above all accept these things.
Albert Camus
I like men to behave like men. I like them strong and childish.
Françoise Sagan
Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility.All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness.
Joseph Joubert
It is a false and dangerous situation which bases public power on private want, and roots the grandeur of the State in the suffering of the individual. It is a badly constituted grandeur which combines all the material elements, and into which no moral element enters.
Victor Hugo
He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.
Jean-Paul Sartre
As to moral courage I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning kind. I mean unprepared courage that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion and which in spite of the most unforeseen events leaves full freedom of judgement and decision.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Cbercbez lafemme. (Find the woman.)
Alexander Dumas
A heart is never broken, it is our mind that can't find the key to unlock the treasures that are hidden inside each of us. Letting go, acceptance and trust to our core heart are the true path to reunion with our loving self and let all fears and sorrow disappear.
Bruno Fabre
Fashions fade - style is eternal.
Yves Saint-Laurent
The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, and quality and of peaceful liberty.
Marquis De Lafayette
From the olive-strewn forum, one could see the village down below. Not a sound came from it; wisps of smoke rose in the limpid air. The sea also lay silent, as if breathless beneath the unending shower of cold, glittering light. From the Chenoua, a distant cock crow alone sang the fragile glory of the day. Across the ruins, as far as one could see, there were nothing but pitted stones and absinthe plants, trees and perfect columns in the transparence of the crystal air. It was as if the morning stood still, as if the sun had stopped for an immeasurable moment. In this light and silence, years of night and fury melted slowly away. I listened to an almost forgotten sound within myself, as if my heart had long been stopped and was now gently beginning to beat again.
Albert Camus
Whatever may have been said of the satiety of pleasure and of the disgust which usually follows passion, any man who has anything of a heart and who is not wretchedly and hopelessly blasé feels his love increased by his happiness, and very often the best way to retain a lover ready to leave is to give one's self up to him without reserve.
Théophile Gautier
What a fool she was ever to have imagined that there might be some place in the world where she could sink to the earth with the knowledge that there were people round her who understood, who perhaps even admired and loved her! She was fated to carry loneliness about with her as a leper carries his scabs. 'No one can do anything for me: no one can do anything against me.
François Mauriac
It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.
Victor Hugo
A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succ
Stendhal
Little faults become great, and even monstrous in our eyes, in proportion as the pure light of God increases in us; just as the sun in rising, reveals the true dimensions of objects which were dimly and confusedly discovered during the night.
François Fénelon
Ô, the wine of a womanfrom heaven is sent, more perfect than allthat a man can invent.When she came to my bed and begged me with sighsnot to tempt her towards passion nor actions unwise, tI told her I’d spare her and kissed her closed eyes, then unbraided her body of its clothing disguise.While our bodies were nude bathed in candlelight fineI devoured her mouth, tender lips divine;and I drank through her thighs her feminine wine.Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,more perfect than all that a man can invent.
Roman Payne
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
Albert Schweitzer
Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just as the honest man has his weaknesses.
Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos
Life is a flower of which love is the honey.
Victor Hugo
Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.
Stéphane Mallarmé
An excellent but an eccentric man in whom the least little thing would, it seemed, often check the flow of his spirits and divert the current of his thoughts.
Marcel Proust
I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.
Jules Verne
He who writes books that aim to convince is a comedian, too, just a comedian. What has he got to offer others, apart from chains, still more chains? Fiction never liberated anyone. No one ever brought anything back from voyages through dream worlds.
Jean-Marie G. Le Clézio
But I can’t manage to grow up and change shape. I’m still tiny, and staying that way, perhaps because I know the secret that everyone pretends to be unaware of, perhaps because I know that deep down we’re all tiny.
Delphine de Vigan
Time is a great manager: it arranges things well.
Pierre Corneille
What a face this girl possessed!—Could I neither die then nor gaze at her face every day, I would need to recreate it through painting or sculpture, or through fatherhood, until a second such face could be born.
Roman Payne
Only the painter who knows his business can create the impression that a picture was done in one stroke.
Auguste Renoir
So what I had believed to be nothing to me was simply my entire life. How ignorant one is of oneself.
Marcel Proust
The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Fortune's fool! How we humans lie upon beauty like lizards upon a sun-baked rock.
Roman Payne
To achieve accurate knowledge of others, if such a thing were possible, we could only ever arrive at it through the slow and unsure recognition of our own initial optical inaccuracies. However, such knowledge is not possible: for, while our vision of others is being adjusted, they, who are not made of mere brute matter, are also changing; we think we have managed to see them more clearly, but they shift; and when we believe we have them fully in focus, it is merely our older images of them that we have clarified, but which are themselves already out of date.
Marcel Proust
We are young, but We already know that in life's great game those who are most unhappy are those who haven't taken the risk to be happy. And I don't want to be one of those
Guillaume Musso
Journalism, look you, is the religion of modern society.
Honoré de Balzac
The breath of the mind is attention 128
Joseph Joubert
You ask: Why is the malady of death fatal? She answers: Because whoever has it doesn't know he's a carrier, of death. And also because he's like to die without any life to die to, and without evn knowing that's what he's doing.
Marguerite Duras
I had only to open my bedroom window, and blue air, love, and flowers entered with her”.
Marc Chagall
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
Honoré de Balzac
It is now and in this world that we must live.
André Gide
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
Gustave Flaubert
If we suggest that it is okay to make fun of everything except certain aspects of Islam because Muslims are much more sensitive than the rest of the population, isn’t that discrimination? Shouldn’t we treat the second-largest religion in France, exactly as we treat the first? It’s time to put an end to the revolting paternalism of the white, middle-class, “leftist” intellectual trying to coexist with these “poor, subliterate wretches.” “'I’m' educated; obviously I get that 'Charlie Hebdo' is a humor newspaper because, first, I’m very intelligent, and second, it’s my culture. But you—well, you haven’t quite mastered nuanced thinking yet, so I’ll express my solidarity by fulminating against Islamaphobic cartoons and pretending not to understand them. I will lower myself to your level to show you that I like you. And if I need to convert to Islam to get even closer to you, I’ll do it!” These pathetic demagogues just have a ravenous need for recognition and a formidable domination fantasy to fulfil.
Charb
Are you afraid in there?" she said softly, as the men called out for them."No," he said. "I'm not afraid. You lock me in. They won't get me."She closed the door on the little white face, turned the key in the lock. Then she slipped the key into her pocket. The lock was hidden by a pivoting device shaped like a light switch. It was impossible to see the outline of the cupboard in the paneling of the wall. Yes, he'd be safe there. She was sure of it.The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel."I'll come back for you later. I promise.
Tatiana de Rosnay
To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought...?
Roland Barthes
In science there is and will remain a Platonic element which could not be taken away without ruining it. Among the infinite diversity of singular phenomena science can only look for invariants.
Jacques Monod
the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future; that is a threefold adventure like no other.
George Steiner
I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.
Gustave Flaubert
A dictionary resembles the world more than a novel does, because the world is not a coherent sequence of actions but a constellation of things perceived. It is looked at, unrelated things congregate, and geographic proximity gives them meaning. If events follow each other, they are believed to be a story. But in a dictionary, time doesn't exist: ABC is neither more nor less chronological than BCA. To portray your life in order would be absurd: I remember you at random. My brain resurrects you through stochastic details, like picking marbles out of a bag.
Édouard Levé
Extreme boredom provides its own antidote.
François de La Rochefoucauld