François-René de Chateaubriand - Man Quotes

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How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence! He knows when the face of the stars must be masked in darkness, when the comets will return after thousands of years, he who lasts only an instant! A microscopic insect lost in a fold of the heavenly robe, the orbs cannot hide from him a single one of their movements in the depth of space. What destinies will those stars, new to us, light? Is their revelation bound up with some new phase of humanity? You will know, race to be born; I know not, and I am departing.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Without woman, man would be rough, rude, solitary, and would ignore all the graces which are but the smiles of love. Woman weaves about him the flowers of life, as the vines of the forest decorate the trunk of the oak with their fragrant garlands.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Napoleon was all the weaknesses and all the greatnesses of man.

François-René de Chateaubriand
The heart is like the tree that gives balm for the wounds of man, only when the iron has wounded it.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Though we have not employed the arguments usually advanced by the apologists of Christianity, we have arrived by a different chain of reasoning at the same conclusion: Christianity is perfect; men are imperfect. Now, a perfect consequence cannot spring from an imperfect principle. Christianity, therefore, is not the work of men. If Christianity is not the work of man, it can have come from none but God. If it came from God, men cannot have acquired a knowledge of it except by revelation. Therefore, Christianity is a revealed religion.

François-René de Chateaubriand