Quotes by French Authors - Page 10

The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Short of genius a rich man cannot imagine poverty.
Charles Péguy
The better I get to know men the more I find myself loving dogs.
Charles de Gaulle
When we have not what we love we must love what we have.
Roger de Rabutin
What we love we shall grow to resemble.
Bernard of Clairvaux
Think like a man of action act like a man of thought.
Henri Bergson
There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.
François de La Rochefoucauld
My center is giving way my right is in retreat: situation excellent. I am attacking.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch
Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
René Descartes
To establish oneself in the world one has to do all one can to appear established.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We must laugh before we are happy for fear of dying without having laughed at all.
Jean de La Bruyère
To find oneself jilted is a blow to one's pride. One must do one's best to forget it and if one doesn't succeed at least one must pretend to.
Molière
There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.
Jean de La Bruyère
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Alexandre Dumas
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
Napoléon Bonaparte
He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears.
Michel de Montaigne
One is not born a genius one becomes a genius.
Simone de Beauvoir
If you haven't been happy very young you can still be happy later on but it's much harder. You need more luck.
Simone de Beauvoir
It is healthier to see the good points of others than to analyze our own bad ones.
Franchise Sagan
Misery is almost always the result of thinking.
Joseph Joubert
I am happy and content because I think I am.
Alain-Rene Lesage
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.
Honoré de Balzac
The more wary you are of danger the more likely you are to meet it.
Jean de La Fontaine
Look for the ridiculous in everything and you find it.
Jules Renard
I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite which I would like.
Coco Chanel
It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.
Charles de Gaulle
In order to become the master the politician poses as the servant.
Charles de Gaulle
Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness.
Albert Camus
In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
Alexis de Tocqueville
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
Charles de Gaulle
Since a politician never believes what he says he is surprised when others believe him.
Charles de Gaulle
The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.
Talleyrand
Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
Honoré de Balzac
A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.
Jean de La Bruyère
Science is for those who learn poetry for those who know.
Joseph Roux
Poetry is the language of a state of crisis.
Stéphane Mallarmé
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Voltaire
Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Whence? wither? why? how? - these questions cover all philosophy.
Joseph Joubert
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.
Voltaire
Philosophy is doubt.
Michel de Montaigne
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Napoleon
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Louis Pasteur
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing at whatever cost must be attained.
Marie Curie
There are many lovely women but no perfect ones.
Victor Hugo
Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Angelique Arnauld
The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.
Eugène Delacroix
Have patience with all things but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them-every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis de Sales
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men I will find something in them which will hang him.
Richelieu
Perfection does not exist. To understand this is the triumph of human intelligence to expect to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness.
Alfred de Musset
If they want peace nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon-shots.
Napoleon
Peace at any price.
Alphonse de Lamartine
Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul impossibilities vanish.
Jean de La Fontaine
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
Out of difficulties grow miracles.
Jean de La Bruyère
If we have not peace within ourselves it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.
La Rochefoucauld
Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things man will not find peace.
Albert Schweitzer
Once you hear the details of victory it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Time spent with cats is never wasted.
Colette