Quotes by French Authors - Page 6

There is no business in the world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work.
Jean de La Bruyère
I don't think success is harmful as so many people say. Rather I believe it indispensible to talent: if for nothing else than to increase the talent.
Jeanne Moreau
Success produces success just as money produces money.
Nicolas de Chamfort
If you live long enough you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone de Beauvoir
The struggle alone pleases us not the victory.
Blaise Pascal
We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We only do well the things we like doing.
Colette
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
Alexis de Tocqueville
A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.
Albert Schweitzer
Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed.
Charles de Montesquieu
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Louis Pasteur
If you start to take Vienna take Vienna.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The man who can own up to his error is greater than he who merely knows how to avoid making it.
Cardinal de Retz
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.
Madame de Stael
The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch
Man never rises to great truths without enthusiasm.
Vauvenargues
Since everything is in our heads we better not lose them.
Coco Chanel
To be ambitious for wealth and yet always expecting to be poor to be always doubting your ability to get what you long for is like trying to reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy which will help man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so and thus attracting failure. No matter how hard you work for success if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure it will kill your efforts neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible.
Charles Baudouin
A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
Albert Schweitzer
Everything bows to success even grammar.
Victor Hugo
Never having been able to succeed in the world he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.
Voltaire
There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.
André Gide
Above all things never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment.
André Maurois
The habit of doing one's duty drives away fear.
Charles Baudelaire
We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck and ... the house is never burgled and the ship never goes down.
Jean Anouilh
From a distance it is something and nearby it is nothing.
Jean de La Fontaine
Montesquieu had the style of a genius Buffon the genius of style.
Baron Grimm
Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.
Victor Hugo
When I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?
Michel Montaigne
I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
He replies nothing but monosyllables. I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.
François Rabelais
That which is repeated too often becomes insipid and tedious.
Nicolas Boileau
Sorrow is a fruit God does not allow it to grow on a branch that is too weak to bear it.
Victor Hugo
No one can keep his griefs in their prime they use themselves up.
E. M. Cioran
One cannot weep for the entire world. It is beyond human strength. One must choose.
Jean Anouilh
Night when words fade and things come alive when the destructive analysis of day is done and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
Antoine De Saint Exupery
One can acquire everything in solitude but character.
Stendhal
There are four varieties in society the lovers the ambitious observers and fools. The fools are the happiest.
Hippolyte Taine
In any assembly the simplest way to stop the transacting of business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle.
Jacques Barzun
Two people can form a community by excluding a third.
Jean-Paul Sartre
But where are the snows of yesteryear?
Francois Villon
Socialism must come down from the brain and reach the heart.
Jules Renard
Society is composed of two great classes: those who have more dinners than appetite and those who have more appetite than dinners.
Sebastien Chamfort
She slept the sleep of the just.
Racine
I never sleep comfortably except when I am at sermon or when I pray to God.
François Rabelais
Proverty and wealth are comparative sins.
Victor Hugo
Simple style is like white light. It is complex but its complexity is not obvious.
Anatole France
Affected simplicity is refined imposture.
La Rochefoucauld
When thought is too weak to be simply expressed it's clear proof that it should be rejected.
Luc de Clapiers
When an idea is too weak to support a simple statement it is a sign that it should be rejected.
Vauvenargues
Simple truths are a relief from grand speculations.
Vauvenargues
It is not alone what we do but also what we do not do for which we are accountable.
Molière
It is the essence of genius to make use of the simplest ideas.
Charles Péguy
True eloquence consists of saying all that should be said and that only.
François de La Rochefoucauld
It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgment to be silent.
Jean de La Bruyère
Men fear silence as they fear solitude because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness.
André Maurois
It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgement to be silent.
Jean de La Bruyère
How could the drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.
Antoine de St. Exupery
We need a reason to speak but none to keep silent.
Pierre Nicole