French Author Quotes

Ingratitude calls forth reproaches as gratitude brings renewed kindnesses.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal

Anarchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought, that stream whose main components are concern for liberty and haste to abolish the State.

A single nation that has succeeded in lowering the intelligence, the morality, the quality of the human race almost throughout the globe is a phenomenon never before experienced since the beginning of time. I accuse the United States of being in a constant state of crime against humanity.

Henry de Montherlant

Father died last year. I don't subscribe to the theory by which we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult.

Michel Houellebecq

I am dying of thirst by the side of the fountain.

Charles, Duke of Orléans

The artist is the compass which, through the raging of the storm, points steadily to the north.

They flattered the ambitious and all the ills came gradually to a head. Murder drowning everything was allowed. Intriguers monopolised all the offices. Good men could only mutter for if they spoke they were lost. Hatred vengeance everything was permitted and nobody dared open his mouth...

Jacques-Louis Ménétra

When one knows the tremendous strength of their roots, and the arid fraternity among them, their conventional exotic image fades away.... In this place of acceptance and denial, this line of trees contains the essentials of wisdom: it teaches moderation and at the same time inspires audacity.

Édouard Glissant

Harvest, oh! harvest your hour While life is abloom with youth! For age with bitter ruth Will fade your beauty's flower.

Pierre de Ronsard

Segu is a garden where cunning grows. Segu is built on treachery. Speak of Segu outside Segu, but do not speak of Segu in Segu.

For I think that it's just as much good sense, if one can keep to the point, as to twist my words round each other.

Giraut de Bornelh

Yet this is the watch by night.
Let us all accept new strength, and
real tenderness. And at dawn, armed
with glowing patience, we will enter
the cities of glory.

Nothing is small or great in God's sight. Whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling; and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.

Our fate is shaped from within ourselves outward, never from without inward.

Jacques Lusseyran

A tainted society has invented psychiatry to defend itself against the investigations of certain superior intellects whose faculties of divination would be troublesome.

No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.

Honoré de Balzac

Time is a great ocean which, like the other ocean, overflows with our remains.

Alphonse de Lamartine

I have so fiercely dreamed of you And walked so far and spoken of you so, Loved a shade of you so hard That now I've no more left of you.

Take love as a sober man takes wine; do not become a drunkard. If your mistress is sincere and faithful, love her for that; but if she is not, if she is merely young and beautiful, love her for that; if she is agreeable and spirituelle, love her for that; if she is none of these things but merely loves you, love her for that. Love does not come to us every day.

Alfred de Musset

We may finally ask ourselves whether coincidence really does exist. Maybe everybody we run into is walking around near us with the undying hope of meeting us? To think of it, it's a fact that they often seem out of breath.

David Foenkinos

I sit beside my lonely fire
And pray for wisdom yet:
For calmness to remember
Or courage to forget.

Charles Hamilton Aide

The good effect of Fortune may be short-lived. To build on it is to build on sand.

Honorat de Bueil de Racan

Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

Whoever has but a moment to live has nothing more to hide.

Philippe Quinault

Love's pleasure lasts but a moment;
Love's sorrow lasts all through life.

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian