Quotes by French Authors - Page 18

Nature like a kind and smiling mother lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies.
Victor Hugo
Nature abhors a vacuum.
François Rabelais
Nature has always had more force than education.
Voltaire
Every flower is a soul blossoming in Nature.
Gérard de Nerval
All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so.
Joseph Joubert
Men argue nature acts.
Voltaire
Music is given to us specifically to make order of things to move from an anarchic individualistic state to a regulated perfectly concious one which alone insures vitality and durability.
Igor Stravinsky
Music is a language by whose means messages are elaborated that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by few and that it alone among all the languages unites the contradictory character of being at once intelligible and untranslatable - these facts make the creator of music a being like the gods.
Claude Lévi-Strauss
The function of pop music is to be consumed.
Pierre Boulez
I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the varieties of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.
Igor Stravinsky
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
Igor Stravinsky
Music is the art of thinking with sounds.
Jules Combarieu
Nothing is better than music.... It has done more for us than we have the right to hope for.
Nadia Boulanger
Music is another planet.
Alphonse Daudet
He was dying all his life.
Hector Berlioz
It is the best of all trades to make songs and the second best to sing them.
Hilaire Belloc
Great men undertake great things because they are great fools because they think them easy.
Vauvenargues
Fear desire hope still push us on toward the future.
Michel de Montaigne
The public doesn't want new music the main thing that it demands of a composer is that he be dead.
Arthur Honegger
If each of us were to confess his most secret desire the one that inspires all his plans all his actions he would say: "I want to be praised."
E. M. Cioran
Great men undertake great things because they are great fools because they think them easy.
Vauvenargues
Fear desire hope still push us on toward the future.
Michel de Montaigne
If each of us were to confess his most secret desire the one that inspires all his plans all his actions he would say: "I want to be praised."
E. M. Cioran
There are only two forces that unite men-fear and interest.
Napoléon Bonaparte
We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves we desire to live an imaginary life in the minds of others and for this purpose we endeavor to shine.
Blaise Pascal
The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts even that of disinterestedness.
François de La Rochefoucauld
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Lust and force are the source of all our actions lust causes voluntary actions force involuntary ones.
Blaise Pascal
Happiness is in the taste and not in the things themselves we are happy from possessing what we like not from possessing what others like.
François de La Rochefoucauld
He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows that plan carries thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.
Victor Hugo
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
Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.
Jean Giraudoux
What you get free costs too much.
Jean Anouilh
In any assembly the simplest way to stop transacting business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle.
Jacques Barzun
No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.
Michel de Montaigne
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
Albert Schweitzer
Soldiers forty centuries are looking down upon you from these pyramids.
Napoleon
It is a public scandal that gives offence and it is no sin to sin in secret.
Molière
When it is a question of money everybody is of the same religion.
Voltaire
A modest man never talks of himself.
Jean de La Bruyère
It has been very truly said that the mob has many heads but no brains.
Antoine de Rivarol
Modesty is the conscience of the body.
Honoré de Balzac
The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.
Georges Bidault
We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of others.
La Rochefoucauld
We love women in proportion to their degree of strangeness to us.
Charles Baudelaire
10 persons who speak make more noise than 10 000 who are silent.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Two things control man's nature: instinct and experience.
Blaise Pascal
I like men to behave like men. I like them strong and childish.
Françoise Sagan
The only things that distinguish us from the rest of the animals Madam is our habit of drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at any time.
Pierre Beaumarchais
The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.
André Gide
We must always have old memories and young hopes.
Arsene Houssaye
That which we remember of our conduct is ignored by our closest neighbour but that which we have forgotten having said or even what we never said will cause laughter even into the next world.
Marcel Proust
Everyone complains of his lack of memory but nobody of his want of judgement.
La Rochefoucauld
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Simone Signoret
I have a remarkable memory I forget everything. It is wonderfully convenient. It is as though the world were constantly renewing itself for me.
Jules Renard
How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?
La Rochefoucauld
It is commonly seen by experience that excellent memories do often accompany weak judgements.
Michel de Montaigne
Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little to cure diseases of which they know less in human beings of whom they know nothing.
Voltaire