François-René de Chateaubriand Short Quotes

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Who of us has not shed tears over the tomb of a loved one!

François-René de Chateaubriand
On his conversion to Christianity:
I wept and I believed.

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

François-René de Chateaubriand
Justice is the bread of nations: they are always famishing for it.

François-René de Chateaubriand
As long as the heart preserves desire, the mind preserves illusion.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Love is blind: that is why he always proceeds by the sense of touch.

François-René de Chateaubriand
There are two sorts of ruins: one is the work of time, the other of men.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Every institution goes through three stages — utility, privilege, and abuse.

François-René de Chateaubriand
The original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Certain importunities always please women — even when the importuner does not please.

François-René de Chateaubriand
My downfall made a great noise: those who appeared most satisfied criticized the manner of it.

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
Something you consider bad may bring out your child's talents; something you consider good may stifle them.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Genius creates, and taste preserves. Taste is the good sense of genius; without taste, genius is only sublime folly.

François-René de Chateaubriand
I am Bourbon as a matter of honour, royalist according to reason and conviction, and republican by taste and character.

François-René de Chateaubriand
That two men may be real friends, they must have opposite opinions, similar principles, and different loves and hatreds.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Achilles exists only through Homer. Take away the art of writing from this world, and you will probably take away its glory.

François-René de Chateaubriand
What has become of those personages who made so much noise in the world? Time has made one step, and the face of the earth is renewed.

François-René de Chateaubriand
As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads them down with.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Murder will never be in my eyes an object of admiration and an argument for freedom; I know nothing more servile, more despicable, more cowardly, more narrow-minded than a terrorist.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Aristocracy has three successive ages: the age of superiorities, the age of privileges, the age of vanities. Originating in the first, it degenerates in the second and becomes extinct in the third.

François-René de Chateaubriand