Quotes by French Authors - Page 36

Film lovers are sick people.
François Truffaut
i've always wanted, basically, to do research in the form of a spectacle.
Jean-Luc Godard
If you are great, El Topo is a great picture. If you are limited, El Topo is limited.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'.
Céleste Albaret
... 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
Whenever she saw in others an advantage, however trivial, which she herself lacked, she would persuade herself that it was no advantage at all, but a drawback, and would pity so as not to have to envy them.
Marcel Proust
Envy, bitter envy, was permeating his soul drop by drop, like a poison that tainted all his pleasures and made his life hateful.
Guy de Maupassant
Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.
Voltaire
I was angry at myself for my inclination to vice. I longed for the day when a state of frenzy would lead my mind to sober pasture, just as it had for Saint Augustine. I longed for the day when the love of one woman would be sacred enough to forget all the rest.
Roman Payne
The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk grow away from it.
Victor Hugo
In the first place, it would efface from everybody’sconscience the distinction between justice and injustice.No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a cer-tain degree, but the safest way to make them respected isto make them respectable. When law and morality are incontradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself inthe cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or oflosing his respect for the law—two evils of equal magni-tude, between which it would be difficult to choose.
Frédéric Bastiat
Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation.
Frédéric Bastiat
Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be...
Jean-Paul Sartre
And now, the end is near,And so I face the final curtain.My friend, I'll say it clear,I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.I've lived a life that's full.I've traveled each and every highway;And more, much more than this,I did it my way.
Jacques Revaux
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
René Descartes
One cannot get rid of a good education, nor, unfortunately, of a bad one, which often is such because one has not wanted to defray the expenses of a good one.
Denis Diderot
You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Victor Hugo
Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies."(Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)
Voltaire
Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for any thing in these various states.
Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach
In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur
Chance favours the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur
For existential mathematics, which does not exist, would probably propose this equation: the value of coincidence equals the degree of its improbability.
Milan Kundera
Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live.
Michel de Montaigne
... plunged into chance,--that is to say, swallowed up in Providence
Victor Hugo
God is not remote from us. He is at the point of my pen, my (pick) shovel, my paint brush, my (sewing) needle - and my heart and thoughts.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Intimacy isn’t something men talk about.
Michel Houellebecq
...intimacy isn't something men talk about. They may talk about politics, literature, stocks, or sports, depending on the man, but about their love lives they keep silent, even to their dying breath.
Michel Houellebecq
Biographers know nothing about the intimate sex lives of their own wives, but they think they know all about Stendhal’s or Faulkner’s.
Milan Kundera
To all the readers,whom despitethe attraction of tv,of internet,of family troubles,of video games,of sport,of night clubs,have found some hoursso we can all dream together.
Bernard Werber
What is the greatest need of human beings? What is it they seek from me always? Intimacy. I listen with all my being, I am completely interested. I seek momentarily a full communion of eyes, feelings, thoughts.
Anaïs Nin
The breath of the mind is attention 128
Joseph Joubert
. . .where there is no more hope, song remains.
Victor Hugo
When we hear the bird sing, it hears only how to love. (Quand on entend l'oiseau chanter, - Lui n'entend que comment aimer.)
Charles de Leusse
Things perish. Gods have passed.But song sublimely castShall citadels outlast.
Théophile Gautier
It was not that Madame Santeuil's moral values had altered, but only her view of the moral values of others.
Marcel Proust
Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track." The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not then new, but among the Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance; it has become popular there; you may trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they say.
Alexis de Tocqueville
It is difficult to frighten those who are easily astonished; ignorance causes fearlessness. Children have so little claim on hell, that if they should see it they would admire it.
Victor Hugo
There are times where excessive innocence seems so monstrous that it becomes hateful.
Gaston Leroux
The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forms of depravity—which is what, more or less, all teenage girls are.
Michel Houellebecq
You know-- one loves the sunset, when one is so sad...""Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?"But the little prince made no reply.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
The really pure in heart know nothing of what goes on around them each day, each night; never realize what poisonous weeds spring up beneath their childish feet.
François Mauriac
The hour of spring was dark at last,sensuous memories of sunlight past,I stood alone in garden bowersand asked the value of my hours.Time was spent or time was tossed,Life was loved and life was lost.I kissed the flesh of tender girls,I heard the songs of vernal birds.I gazed upon the blushing light,aware of day before the night.So let me ask and hear a thought:Did I live the spring I’d sought?It's true in joy, I walked along,took part in dance, and sang the song.and never tried to bind an hourto my borrowed garden bower;nor did I once entreata day to slumber at my feet.Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song,like morning birds they pass along,o'er crests of trees, to none belong;o'er crests of trees of drying dew,their larking flight, my hands, eschewThus I’ll say it once and true...From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered,I learned that time cannot be spent,It only can be squandered.
Roman Payne
Monsieur, innocence is its own crown! Innocence has only to act to be noble! She is as august in rags as fleur de lys.
Victor Hugo
I don't know how to defend myself: surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion.
Pierre Corneille
Until that day at the dress department Lucie had been many things to me: a child, a source of comfort, a balm, an escape from myself; she was literally everything for me – but a woman. Our love in the physical sense of the word had proceeded no further than the kissing stage. And even the way she kissed was childish (I'd fallen in love with those kisses, long but chaste, with dry closed lips counting each other's fine striations as they touched in emotion).In short, until then I had felt tenderness for Lucie, but no sensual desire; I'd grown so accustomed to its absence that I wasn't even conscious of it; my relationship with Lucie seemed so beautiful that I could never have dreamed anything was missing. Everything fit so harmoniously together: Lucie, her monastically gray clothes, and my monastically chaste relation with her.
Milan Kundera
I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.
André Gide
Monsieur, innocence is its own crown. Innocence has no truck with highness. It is as august in rags as it is draped in the fleur-de-lis.
Victor Hugo
In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.
Stendhal
There is no aphrodisiac like innocence
Jean Baudrillard
First of all, time travel per se does not exist. ‘Travel’ implies that you choose both your destination and when you come back. It’s more a ‘time shot,’ a ‘time through.’ But it’s definitely not time travel.
Francis Barel
In 1945, Oppenheimer posited that what happened during the Trinity Test was due to ‘Time Tunnels.’ A 50-year ‘time tunnel.”“So, in 1945, you could send a soldier 50 years back?”“Exactly. Well, except for the fact that at the time we didn’t know if we ever could deliberately send something or someone, but we were already sure it was a one-way trip.
Francis Barel
How many contradictions! Eh! If I loaded my wagon all on the same side, I'd tumble it over.
Rémy de Gourmont
Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.
Anaïs Nin
By becoming clearly contemplative in a matter of weeks, my prayer had been given a particular and novel cast; and this was matched by the distinctness in the reprecussions my daily sessions of exercises were having on my everyday life, as well as on the many different occupations which a monk is vowed to carry out. The genuine sense of euphoria that followed the exercises persisted in me and transfigured my day. During the early months I had to face up to the sort of difficulties which put one's nerves to the test, and which would certainly have put me on my back before. As it was, everything went off so smoothly and I took it all so well that I trained everyone under my charge to develop the attitude of 'accepting rather than undergoing.
Jean Déchanet
on him, under him, with his mouth pressed to hers, he sang to her uncouth songs that moved through her body.
Jean Genet
I am like a little child naked in a strong wind. I have a fever, I shiver, I'm too hot or too cold. My lips retain the unusual fruity taste of your mouth, & the bitter taste of your saliva lingers on my tongue, making me find everything I eat bland, sickening since nothing is as good as your love.
Rachilde
Was the happiness of knowing these girls really unattainable? It would certainly not have been the first happiness of that sort which I had abandoned all hope of ever enjoying?
Marcel Proust
She said she didn't love him, and he said it didn't matter, and the poverty of their words brought tears to their eyes.
Françoise Sagan
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.
Étienne de La Boétie
When politics and home life have become one and the same, when economic problems have been solved in such a way that individual and collective interests are identical – all constraints having disappeared – it is evident that we will be in a state of total liverty or anarchy.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon