French Poet Quotes

There is no mystery about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. They were not written by Shakespeare at all. They were all written by a total stranger, about whom all we know is that he was called Shakespeare.

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.

Heresy is the lifeblood of religions. It is faith that begets heretics. There are no heresies in a dead religion.

André Suarès
André Suarès
I die of thirst beside the fountain
I'm hot as fire, I'm shaking tooth on tooth
In my own country I'm in a distant land
Beside the blaze I'm shivering in flames

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

Guillaume Apollinaire
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.

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

Pierre-Jean de Béranger
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?

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

The snail will get to Easter just as soon.

In times gone by there lived a Count of Ponthieu, who loved chivalry and the pleasures of the world beyond measure, and moreover was a stout knight and a gallant gentleman

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

Giovanni Rucellai
Giovanni Rucellai
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.

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