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Philosophical literature48 quotes
And with the guts of the last priest
Let's wring the neck of the last king. — Denis Diderot · 1772I think, therefore I am. — Rene Descartes · 1637I am condemned to be free. — Jean-Paul Sartre · 1943The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. — Blaise Pascal · 1662We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience. — Blaise Pascal · 1662God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?... If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. — Blaise Pascal · 1662All 48 quotes →Political literature25 quotes
Religious insanity is very common in the United States. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, as either a principal or accessory motive, at the bottom of all that the Americans do; this gives to all their passions a sort of family likeness. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840God is stupidity and cowardice; God is hypocrisy and falsehood. God is tyranny and poverty; God is evil. For as long as men bow before altars, mankind will remain damned, the slaves of kings and priests. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon · 1846Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be; in this direction their unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all measure.... Democracy, which shuts the past against the poet, opens the future before him. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1840They have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1835All 25 quotes →Autobiography and memoir16 quotes
There are no small steps in great affairs. — Jean-Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz · 1717Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery · 1939There is nothing in the world which does not have its decisive moment, and the masterpiece of good management is to recognize and grasp this moment. — Jean-Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz · 1717France cannot be France without greatness. — Charles de Gaulle · 1954The world began without the human race and it will end without it... Man has never-save only when he reproduces himself-done other than cheerfully dismantle millions upon millions of structures and reduce their elements to a state in which they can no longer be reintegrated. — Claude Levi-Strauss · 1955One of the best things about love is just recognizing a man's step when he climbs the stairs. — Colette · 1941All 16 quotes →Modernist literature15 quotes
The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is. — Marcel Proust · 1922The bonds between ourselves and another person exist only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying. — Marcel Proust · 1922We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full. — Marcel Proust · 1922Once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime flowers which my aunt used to give me... Immediately the old gray house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theater. — Marcel Proust · 1913Like everybody who is not in love, he imagined that one chose the person whom one loved after endless deliberations and on the strength of various qualities and advantages. — Marcel Proust · 1921There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer. — Marcel Proust · 1922All 15 quotes →Historical literature14 quotes
This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons hitherto brought forward in explanation of this fact has seemed adequate. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949To tell the truth, one is not born a genius: one becomes a genius. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. — Napoleon Bonaparte · 1812It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949It is not always by going from bad to worse that a society falls into revolution... The social order destroyed by a revolution is almost always better than that which immediately preceded it, and experience shows that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is generally that in which it sets about reform. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1856All 14 quotes →Satire13 quotes
All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. — Voltaire · 1759If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? — Voltaire · 1759I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away? — Voltaire · 1759Speak the truth and shame the Devil. — Francois Rabelais · 1564To laugh is proper to man. — Francois Rabelais · 1534We must cultivate our garden. — Voltaire · 1759All 13 quotes →Comedy (play)9 quotes
One is easily fooled by that which one loves. — Moliere · 1669He who lives without tobacco is not worthy to live. — Moliere · 1665It is public scandal that constitutes offence, and to sin in secret is not to sin at all. — Moliere · 1669Of all human follies there's none could be greater
Than trying to render our fellow-men better. — Moliere · 1666We only die once, and for such a long time! — Moliere · 1656You see him laboring to produce bons mots. — Moliere · 1666All 9 quotes →Scientific literature8 quotes
Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night. But it is this gleam which is everything. — Henri Poincare · 1905To doubt everything and to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; each saves us from thinking. — Henri Poincare · 1902The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. — Henri Poincare · 1908Discovery is discernment, selection. — Henri Poincare · 1908The theory of probabilities is at bottom only common sense reduced to calculus. — Pierre-Simon Laplace · 1814We must trust to nothing but facts: these are presented to us by nature and cannot deceive. — Antoine Lavoisier · 1789All 8 quotes →Food writing5 quotes
Alcohol is the prince of liquids, and carries the palate to its highest pitch of exaltation. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin · 1825Cooking is the most ancient of arts, for Adam was born hungry. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin · 1825The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin · 1825Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin · 1825Your true amateur sips his wine; as he lingers over each separate mouthful, he obtains from each the sum total of pleasure that he would have experienced had he emptied his glass at a single draught. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin · 1825Feminist literature4 quotes
This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons hitherto brought forward in explanation of this fact has seemed adequate. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949To tell the truth, one is not born a genius: one becomes a genius. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949Biography3 quotes
Life is much more fun when you have to worry about money coming in. — Pierre Auguste RenoirThe artist must have the patience of water that eats away the rock drop by drop. — Auguste RodinAutumn is quite beautiful here but all the same has a funereal air, like all beautiful autumns-something like a funereal relaxation of things. — Marcel DuchampPolitical speech3 quotes
Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not and shall not die. — Charles de Gaulle · 1940Citizens, would you want a revolution without revolution? — Maximilien Robespierre · 1792It is easier to make war than to make peace. — Georges Clemenceau · 1919Tragedy (play)3 quotes
A service beyond all recompense
Weighs so heavy that it almost gives offense. — Pierre Corneille · 1674Popularity? It is glory's small change. — Victor Hugo · 1838Do your duty, and leave the outcome to the Gods. — Pierre Corneille · 1640Comedy2 quotes
We only die once, and for such a long time! — Moliere · 1656You see him laboring to produce bons mots. — Moliere · 1666Epistolary novel2 quotes
If triangles were to make to themselves gods, they would give them three sides. — Montesquieu · 1721Men should be bewailed at their birth and not at their death. — Montesquieu · 1721Satirical fiction2 quotes
Speak the truth and shame the Devil. — Francois Rabelais · 1564To laugh is proper to man. — Francois Rabelais · 1534Soul2 quotes
What you want baby, I got it
What you need, do you know I got it?
All I'm askin' is for a little respect when you come home. — Otis Redding · 1965I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay,
Watchin' the tide roll away,
Ooh, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay,
Wastin' time. — Otis Redding · 1968Adventure novel1 quote
All for one, one for all. — Alexandre Dumas · 1844Comedic play1 quote
The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself. — Moliere · 1666Drama (play)1 quote
Popularity? It is glory's small change. — Victor Hugo · 1838Historical fiction1 quote
All for one, one for all. — Alexandre Dumas · 1844Military speech1 quote
Think of it, soldiers; from the summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you. — Napoleon Bonaparte · 1823Picaresque1 quote
The pleasure of talking is the inextinguishable passion of woman. — Alain Rene Lesage · 1724Psychological literature1 quote
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it. — Daniel Kahneman · 2011Religious literature1 quote
The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none. — Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand · 1802Sociology1 quote
In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation. — Guy Debord · 1967Tragedy1 quote
A service beyond all recompense
Weighs so heavy that it almost gives offense. — Pierre Corneille · 1674Tragic play1 quote
The more foreigners I saw, the more I loved my homeland. — Pierre-Laurent Buirette de Belloy · 1765Tragicomedy1 quote
To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory. — Pierre Corneille · 1636Travel writing1 quote
Whoever has really seen Russia will find himself content to live anywhere else. It is always good to know that a society exists where no happiness is possible because, by a law of nature, man cannot be happy unless he is free. — Astolphe de Custine · 1843