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Explore 473 quotes originally in French

The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honour. Valour is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays

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Topic

Inner strength Determination

Author

Michel de Montaigne

Source

Of Cannibals Essays

Medium

Essay

Language

French

Time

1580 1580s 16th century

Era

European Renaissance

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

De Montaigne, Michel. "Des Cannibales [Of Cannibals]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.

Current Citation

De Montaigne, Michel. "On the Cannibals." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.

Rob him of his illusions, and man would perish of very weariness and despair.

Anatole France

More information about this quote

Topic

Lies Delusion Human nature

Author

Anatole France

Source

The Bloom of Life

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

French

Time

1922 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

France, Anatole. La Vie en Fleur [The Bloom of Life]. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1923, epilogue.

Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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Topic

Food

Author

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Source

The Physiology of Taste

Genre

Food writing

Language

French

Time

1825 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste [Physiologie du Goût]. Paris, 1825, aph. 4.

Current Citation

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy, translated by M. F. K. Fisher. Vintage, 2011, aph. 4.

Cultivate a well-ordered mind, it's your only road to happiness; and to reach it, be orderly in everything, even in the smallest details.

Eugène Delacroix

More information about this quote

Topic

Artistic development Orderliness Self-improvement Organization Happiness

Author

Eugène Delacroix

Source

Journals of Eugene Delacroix

Medium

Personal journal

Statement Type

Advice

Language

French

Time

1823 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Delacroix, Eugène. Journal entry. 15 Apr. 1823.

Current Citation

Delacroix, Eugène. The Journal of Eugène Delacroix: A Selection, translated by Lucy Norton, edited by Hubert Wellington. Phaidon, 1995.

There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.

Charles Baudelaire

More information about this quote

Topic

Beauty Variety

Author

Charles Baudelaire

Source

Qu'est-ce que le romantisme?

Medium

Essay

Language

French

Time

1846 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Baudelaire, Charles. "Qu'est-ce que le romantisme?" Salon de 1846. 1846.

Current Citation

Baudelaire, Charles. "Salon of 1846." Baudelaire: Selected Writings on Art and Literature, translated by P. E. Charvet. Penguin Classics, 1993.

Education makes us what we are.

Claude Adrien Helvétius

More information about this quote

Topic

Effects of education Education

Author

Claude Adrien Helvétius

Source

De l'esprit

Medium

Essay

Language

French

Time

1758 1750s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Helvétius, Claude-Adrien. De l'esprit [On the Mind]. Paris: Durand, 1758, essay 3, ch. 30.

Only one being is wanting, and your whole world is bereft of people.

Alphonse de Lamartine

Les Meditations Poetiques

More information about this quote

Topic

Mourning Grief

Author

Alphonse de Lamartine

Source

L'Isolement Les Meditations Poetiques

Medium

Poem

Language

French

Time

1820 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

De Lamartine, Alphonse. "L'Isolement [Isolation]." Recueillements poétiques [Poetic Meditations]. Paris: Imp P. Didot L'aine, 1820.

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

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

More information about this quote

Topic

Complexities of love Sex Dangers of love Love

Author

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

Source

Celestine

Medium

Poem

Language

French

Time

1784 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

De Florian, Jean-Pierre Claris. Celestine. 1784.

When prejudice commands, reason is silent.

Claude Adrien Helvétius

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Topic

Prejudice and bias Reason

Author

Claude Adrien Helvétius

Source

A Treatise on Man

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

French

Time

1771 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Helvetius, Claude Andre. De L'homme, des ses Facultes Intellectuelles et de Son Education [A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and His Education]. Vol. 2, London: James Cundee/Vernor, Hood and Sharpe, 1810, ch. 19.

Current Citation

Helvetius, Claude Andre. A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and His Education, translated by W. Hooper. Vol. 2, University of Michigan Press, 2009, ch. 19.

People say the native stands on the edge of a chasm. It is not he who stands on the edge of a chasm; his claims are not false. They are just... Every step the Indian takes is based on a profound sense of fairness.

Louis Riel

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Topic

Native Americans

Author

Louis Riel

Medium

Personal journal

Language

French

Time

1885 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Riel, Louis. Diary entry. 6 May 1885.

Current Citation

Riel, Louis. The Diaries of Louis Riel, edited by Thomas Flanagan. Hurtig, 1976.

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one's own the sufferings and joys of others.

Andre Gide

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Topic

Kindness Empathy

Author

Andre Gide

Language

French

Time

1959 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Gide, Andre. "Portraits and Aphorisms: An Unprejudiced Mind." Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality, edited by Justin O'Brien. Secker & Warburg/Meridian Books, 1959.

Of all days, the one most surely wasted is the one on which one has not laughed.

Nicolas Chamfort

More information about this quote

Topic

Laughter

Author

Nicolas Chamfort

Source

Maximes et Pensées

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

French

Time

1796 1790s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Chamfort, Nicolas. Maximes et Pensees. c. 1796, no. 48.

The artist must have the patience of water that eats away the rock drop by drop.

Auguste Rodin

More information about this quote

Topic

Artistic process Patience Art

Speaker

Auguste Rodin

Source

Rodin: The Man and His Art, with Leaves from His Notebook

Genre

Biography

Language

French

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Rodin, Auguste and S. K. Star. Rodin: The Man and His Art, with Leaves from His Notebook. Century, 1917, p. 7.

A great nose indicates a great man-
Genial, courteous, intellectual,
Virile, courageous.

Edmond Rostand

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Topic

Noses Body parts

Speaker

Cyrano de Bergerac

Author

Edmond Rostand

Source

Cyrano de Bergerac

Medium

Play

Language

French

Time

1897 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Rostand, Edmond. Cyrano de Bergerac. 27 Dec. 1897, Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin, Paris, France, act 1, sc. 4.

Current Citation

Rostand, Edmond. Cyrano de Bergerac, translated by Lowell Bair. Signet, 2012, act 1, sc. 4.

If ignorance of nature gave birth to the Gods, knowledge of nature is destined to destroy them.

Baron d'Holbach

More information about this quote

Topic

Existence of God Science and religion

Author

Baron d'Holbach

Source

The System of Nature

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

French

Time

1770 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

D'Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron [published as Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud]. Systeme de la Nature ou Des Loix due Mond Physique et du Monde Moral [The System of Nature or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World]. 1770, pt. 2, ch. 1.

Human life is a sad show, undoubtedly: ugly, heavy and complex. Art has no other end, for people of feeling, than to conjure away the burden and bitterness.

Gustave Flaubert

More information about this quote

Topic

Purpose of art Art Life The human condition

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Source

Letters of Gustave Flaubert

Medium

Letter

Language

French

Time

1864 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Letter to Amelie Bosquet. July 1864.

Between good sense and good taste there is the same difference as between cause and effect.

Jean de La Bruyere

More information about this quote

Topic

Good taste Taste

Author

Jean de La Bruyere

Source

The Characters, or The Manners of the Age

Language

French

Time

1688 1680s 17th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

De La Bruyere, Jean. "Des jugements [Of Judgement]." Les Caracteres ou Les Moeurs de Ce Siecle [The Characters or The Manners of the Age]. Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet, 1688.

The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.

François-Rene de Chateaubriand

More information about this quote

Topic

Originality Writers

Author

François-Rene de Chateaubriand

Source

The Genius of Christianity

Genre

Religious literature

Language

French

Time

1802 1800s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

De Chateaubriand, Francois Rene. Genie du christianisme [The Genius of Christianity]. Paris: Chez Migneret, 1802, pt. 2, bk. 1, ch. 3.

Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

Charles Peguy

More information about this quote

Topic

Tyranny Threats to freedom

Author

Charles Peguy

Source

Basic Verities

Medium

Epigram

Language

French

Time

1943 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Peguy, Charles. Basic Verities: Prose and Poetry, translated by Ann and Julian Green. Pantheon Books, 1943.

Everything we think of as great has come to us from neurotics. It is they and they alone who found religions and create great works of art. The world will never realise how much it owes to them and what they have suffered in order to bestow their gifts on it.

Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time

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Topic

Creativity

Speaker

Bergotte

Author

Marcel Proust

Source

In Search of Lost Time

Medium

Novel

Genre

Modernist literature

Language

French

Time

1921 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Proust, Marcel. Le Côté de Guermantes [The Guermantes Way]. Paris: Gallimard, 1920-1921.

Current Citation

Proust, Marcel. The Guermantes Way, edited and translated by Mark Treharne. Penguin Classics, 2005.