French Author Quotes

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

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

Alphonse de Lamartine

I know everything, but I don't understand any of it.

When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate.

Marguerite de Navarre

To go away is to die a little, it is to die to that which one loves: everywhere and always, one leaves behind a part of oneself.

Edmond Haraucourt

A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.

I beg to advise you of the following facts of which I happen to be the equally impartial and horrified witness.

Raymond Queneau

Abstract art: a construction site for high fashion, for advertising, for furniture.

Adrienne Monnier

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.

No one can be too talkative without often saying something that makes him look foolish, for the wise man's saying goes: "Whoever talks too much does himself a bad turn."

Chrétien de Troyes

How many have died without having given even one kiss to their chimera!

Théophile Gautier

Coup de des jamis n'abolira le hasard A Cast of Dice Never Can Annul Chance

Stéphane Mallarmé

How could an argument soothe or settle a controversy when every word is a nest for a bird of doubt? (meaning of words as inferences)

What colour are they now, thy quiet waters?
The evening star has brought the evening light,
And filled the river with the green hillside;
The hill-tops waver in the rippling water,
Trembles the absent vine and swells the grape
In thy clear crystal.

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

Women live only in the emotion that love gives. An old lady confessed that she had loved much, when young: "Ah!" she exclaimed, "the exquisite pain of those days!"

Arsène Houssaye

Twentieth pupil of the centuries knows its stuff and bird-changed this century like Jesus climbs the sky.

Guillaume Apollinaire

And so I leave
On cruel winds
Squalling
And gusting me
Like a dead leaf
Falling.

In order to understand life it is not only necessary not to be indifferent to men, but not to be indifferent to flocks, to trees. One should be indifferent to nothing.

Remy de Gourmont

Gaily! gaily! close our ranks!
Arm! Advance!
Hope of France!
Gaily! gaily! close our ranks!
Onward! Onward! Gauls and Franks!

Pierre-Jean de Béranger

In principle, should the laborers have the produce of their labor? I do not hesitate to say: No! although I know that a multitude of workers will cry out. Look, proletarians, cry out, shout as much as you like, but then listen to me: No, it is not the product of their labors to which the workers have a right. It is the satisfaction of their needs, whatever the nature of those needs. To have the possession of the product of our labor is not to have possession of that which is proper to us, it is to have property in a product made by our hands, and which could be proper to others and not to us. And isn't all property theft?

Joseph Déjacque

Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams.

Ivan Chtcheglov

There is only one proper way to wear a beautiful dress: to forget you are wearing it.

Delphine de Girardin

A friendship that can be ended / didn't ever start

Mellin de Saint-Gelais

Naught else but empty shadows are our dreams,
Reflected from the day's imaginings.

Giovanni Rucellai