Quotes by François-René de Chateaubriand

Quand on parle des vices d’un homme, si on vous dit : “Tout le monde le dit” ne le croyez pas ; si l’on parle de ses vertus en vous disant encore : “Tout le monde le dit”, croyez-le.

Le passé et le présent sont deux statues incomplètes: lune a été retirée toute mutilée du débris des âges, lautre na pas encore reçu sa perfection de lavenir.

L’arbre tombe feuille à feuille : si les hommes contemplaient chaque matin ce qu’ils ont perdu la veille, ils s’apercevraient bien de leur pauvreté.

Si quelques heures font une grande différence dans le cœur de l’homme, faut-il s’en étonner ? Il n’y a qu’une minute de la vie à la mort.

Life is spent hovering round our tomb. Our various sicknesses are but the winds which carry us more or less near to the haven. … Death is our friend, nevertheless we do not recognise it as such, because it presents itself to us under a mask, and that mask inspires us with terror.

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between her work and her play; her labor and her leisure; her mind and her body; her education and her recreation. She hardly knows which is which. She simply pursues her vision of excellence through whatever she is doing, and leaves others to determine if she is working or playing. To herself, she always appears to be doing both.

Purgatory surpasses heaven and hell in poetry, because it represents a future and the others do not.

A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives--all bear secret relations to our destinies.