Quotes by French Authors - Page 62

For it is clear immediately: human life as such is a defeat. All we can do in the face of that ineluctable defeat called life is to try to understand it. That - that is the raison d'être of the art of the novel.
Milan Kundera
At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.
Albert Camus
Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.
Jean de La Fontaine
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all there is only the meaning we each give to our life an individual meaning an individual plot like an individual novel a book for each person.
Anaïs Nin
By living exclusively for the present, we let ourselves be hemmed in by an ocean of death. Conversely, by reviving the past, we enlarge our living space.
Amin Maalouf
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage then to their disadvantage.
Albert Camus
As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that socialism, notwithstanding all its self-compaceny, can scarcely help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do? It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thingbeing done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, beacuse we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.
Bastiat
It is only through love that we can attain to communion with God. All living knowledge of God rest upon this foundation: that we experience Him in our lives as Will-to-love.
Albert Schweitzer
There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The night was starless and very dark. Without doubt, in the gloom some mighty angel was standing, with outstretched wings, awaiting the soul.
Victor Hugo
They were completely vague. They expressed everything and nothing. 'It is the Æolian harp of style,' thought Julien. 'Amid the most lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, the infinite, etc., I can see no reality save a shocking fear of ridicule.
Stendhal
There is a wide difference between having poison and being poisoned. All apothecaries have poisons ready for special uses, but they are not consequently poisoned, because the poison is only in their shop, not in themselves; and so you many possess riches without being poisoned by them, so long as they are in your house or purse only, and not in your heart. It is the Christian's privilege to be rich in material things , and poor in attachment to them.
St. Francis de Sales
You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject...Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize)... this scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire. interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).
Roland Barthes
Gods? Don't let that impress you. Anyone can be a god if they have enough worshippers. You don't even have to have powers anymore. In my time I've seen theatre gods, gladiator gods, even storyteller gods - you people see gods everywhere. Gives you an excuse for not thinking for yourselves.God is just a word. Like Fury. like demon, Just words people use for things they don't understand. Reverse it and you get dog. It's just as appropriate.
Joanne Harris
If one could recover the uncompromising spirit of one's youth one's greatest indignation would be for what one has become.
André Gide
Soon, what was tedious was everything. 'Beautiful things, they're so tedious! Paintings, they're enough to drive you mad...How right you are, it's so tedious, writing letters!' In the end it was life itself that she declared to us was a bore, without one quite knowing from where she was taking her term of comparison.
Marcel Proust
Be there a picnic for the devil,an orgy for the satyr,and a wedding for the bride.
Roman Payne
So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination.
Alexandre Dumas
Short of genius a rich man cannot imagine poverty.
Charles Péguy
So how did you end up making a fool of yourself in front of twenty thousand people?I had a bigger hole to fill.What do you mean?A rock star is someone with a hole in his heart almost the size of his ego.
Michka Assayas
Opportunities are often things you haven't noticed the first time around.
Catherine Deneuve
The youth who, like a woman, loves to adorn his person, has renounced all claim to wisdom and to glory; glory is due to those only who dare to associate with pain, and have trampled pleasure under their feet.
François Fénelon
Respect is tendered with pleasure only where it is not exacted.
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
I never allow myself to be influenced in the smallest degree either by atmospheric disturbances or by the arbitrary divisions of what is known as Time.
Marcel Proust
Long ago one of the Cynic philosophers strutted through the streets of Athens in a torn mantle to make himself admired by everyone by displaying his contempt for convention. One day Socrates met him and said: 'I see your vanity through the hole in your mantle.' Your dirt too, sir, is vanity, and your vanity is dirty.
Milan Kundera
Conscience reigns but it does not govern.
Paul Valéry
Now was the time to make quick tracks. Back to Fort-Gono, retrace my steps? Try to explain my conduct and the circumstances of the present disaster? I hesitated . . . Not for long. Nothing can be explained. The world only knows how to do one thing, to roll over and kill you, as a sleeper kills his fleas. That would be a stupid way to die, I said to myself, to let myself be crushed like everybody else. To put your trust in men is to get yourself killed a little.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
... I should have been struck down by the despair a young lover feels who has sworn lifelong fidelity, when a friend speaks to him of the other mistresses he will have in time to come.
Marcel Proust
Let a man in a garret burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
...as long as nothing happens between them, the memory is cursed with what hasn't happened.
Marguerite Duras
Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.
Nicolas Chamfort
There’s no reason to live, but there’s no reason to die, either. The only way we can still show our contempt for life is to accept it. Life is not worth the bother of leaving it. Out of charity, one might spare a few individuals the trouble of living, but what about oneself? Despair, indifference, betrayal, fidelity, solitude, the family, freedom, weight, money, poverty, love, absence of love, syphilis, health, sleep, insomnia, desire, impotence, platitudes, art, honesty, dishonor, mediocrity, intelligence – nothing there to make a fuss about. We know only too well what those things are made of, no point in watching for them.
Jacques Rigaut
Haven't I told you scores of times, that you're always beginners, and the greatest satisfaction was not in being at the top, but in getting there, in the enjoyment you get out of scaling the heights? That's something you don't understand, and can't understand until you've gone through it yourself. You're still at the state of unlimited illusions, when a good, strong pair of legs makes the hardest road look short, and you've such a mighty appetite for glory that the tiniest crumb of success tastes delightfully sweet. You're prepared for a feast, you're going to satisfy your ambition at last, you feel it's within reach and you don't care if you give the skin off your back to get it! And then, the heights are scaled, the summits reached, and you've got to stay there. That's when the torture begins; you've drunk your excitement to the dregs and found it all too short and even rather bitter, and you wonder whether it was really worth the struggle. From that point there is no more unknown to explore, no new sensations to experience. Pride has had its brief portion of celebrity; you know that your best has been given and you're surprised it hasn't brought a keener sense of satisfaction. From that moment the horizon starts to empty of all hopes that once attracted you towards it. There's nothing to look forward to but death. But in spite of that you cling on, you don't want to feel you're played out, you persist in trying to produce something, like old men persist in trying to make love, with painful, humiliating results. ... If only we could have the courage to hang ourselves in front of our last masterpiece!
Émile Zola
It is impossible on reasonable grounds to disbelieve miracles.
Blaise Pascal
Sometimes, there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another day.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
You were right to come to see a dying man. It is right that these moments should have witnesses. Everyone has his dream; I would like to live till dawn, but I know I have less than three hours left. It will be night, but no matter. Dying is simple. It does not take daylight. So be it: I will die by starlight
Victor Hugo
The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.
Victor Hugo
The country in which I live is not my native country that lies elsewhere and it must always be the center of my longings.
Therese of Lisieux
A woman's situation, i.e those meanings derived from the total context in which she comes to maturity, disposes her to apprehend her body not as instrument of her transcendence, but "an object destined for another.
Simone de Beauvoir
Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety.
Joseph Joubert
Be all this as it may, men should not have to depend upon physical strength for distinction, otherwise animals would have the advantage over them, as would the physically strongest among us.
François Poullain de la Barre
You may plainly perceive the traitor through his mask; he is well known every-where in his true colors; his rolling eyes and his honeyed tones impose only on those who do not know him. People are aware that this low-bred fellow, who deserves to be pilloried, has, by the dirtiest jobs, made his way in the world; and that the splendid position he has acquired makes merit repine and virtue blush. Yet whatever dishonourable epithets may be launched against him everywhere, nobody defends his wretched honour. Call him a rogue, an infamous wretch, a confounded scoundrel if you like, all the world will say “yea, ” and no one contradicts you. But for all that, his bowing and scraping are welcome everywhere; he is received, smiled upon, and wriggles himself into all kinds of society; and, if any appointment is to be secured by intriguing, he will carry the day over a man of the greatest worth. Zounds! these are mortal stabs to me, to see vice parleyed with; and sometimes times I feel suddenly inclined to fly into a wilderness far from the approach of men.
Molière
For at the end of the day, what matters is never the wine, it's always the moment; it's always the people.
Olivier Magny
... the serpent hissing between the lips of Envy is so huge, and so completely fills her wide-opened mouth that the muscles of her face are strained and contorted,...
Marcel Proust
The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.
Colette
For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they [philosophers of former times] became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization of all their desires.
René Descartes
La mise en place du processus de résilience externe doit être continue autour de l'enfant blessé. Son accueil après l'agression constitue la première maille nécessaire et pas forcément verbale, pour renouer le lien après la déchirure. La deuxième maille, plus tardive, exige que les familles et les institutions offrent à l'enfant des lieux pour y produire ses représentations du traumatisme. La troisième maille, sociale et culturelle, se met en place quand la société propose à ces enfants la possibilité de se socialiser. Il ne reste plus qu'à tricoter sa résilience pendant tout le reste de sa vie.
Boris Cyrulnik
All contents of meaning are absorbed in the only dominant form of the medium. Only the medium can make an event.
Jean Baudrillard
Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods,no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.
Anaïs Nin
After a certain age, and even if we develop in quite different ways, the more we become ourselves, the more our family traits are accentuated.
Marcel Proust
In prayer more is accomplished by listening than by talking.
Jane Frances de Chantal
There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function.
Georges Clémenceau
It is a mournful task to break the sombre attachments of the past.
Victor Hugo
The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art.
Henri Matisse
The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue courage is only the second virtue.
Napoléon Bonaparte
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer
those who believed in the Good Lord, for whom death was just a journey, and it didn't make them sad at all
François Lelord
I see enormous loves growing immense and finally crushing me.
Anaïs Nin
S'il n'existait pas Dieu il faudrait l'inventer." (If God did not exist he would have to be invented.)
Voltaire
I bend but I do not break.
Jean de La Fontaine