Popular quotes about French! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
It was announced as a French victory by the French Minister of War. I did not see any sign of victory but only the retreat of the French forces engaged in the battle.
Philip GibbsThe number of those who have to be assimilated to the majority is not too high. It remains small compared with the numbers of the majority. But there is one thing - and that is the main reason for this digression - that French and British have in common: to this day they have an immense pride in being French, in being British. The fact that in the meantime both have come down to earth a little has not yet affected their pride in their own nationality and the fact that, if I may express it that way, they are mutual admiration societies: how fine the British are, how fine the French are.
Norbert EliasThe Second World War had a precipitating effect in that it discredited the empires, as well as bankrupting them. Not only could you no longer, if you were a colonial subject of France in Africa, look to France as a model of power and influence and civility after what had happened in the war. Nor could the French any longer afford to run their empire. And nor could the British, although they were not discredited in the way that the French were.
Tony JudtI have been in countries where I don't know a word of the language. I tried to practice my French as much as possible. I would talk with the crew. I always order in French, but then waiters respond in English. I hate that.
Kevin KlineWe once discussed which were the cleanest troops in the trenches, taken by nationalities. We agreed on a descending-order like this: English and German Protestants; Northern Irish, Welsh and Canadians; Irish and German Catholics; Scots; Mohammedan Indians; Algerians; Portugese; Belgians; French. We put the Belgians and French there for spite; they could not have been dirtier than the Algerians and the Portugese.
Robert GravesWhile I'm sure people in Britain have money worries, they don't have them like the French do. The French, however much money they have, are worried. They're a very stressed people. It seems to be a very essential component of the national psyche.
Jonathan MeadesI have defended the interests of France at the G8 in Washington; afterwards I was at Chicago to announce the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan; I have participated in two European summits, so I have fully respected the engagements I made to the French.
Francois HollandeShe set about preparing her supper. It would have to be one of those classically simple meals, the sort that French peasants are said to eat and that enlightened English people sometimes enjoy rather self-consciously - a crusty French loaf, cheese, and lettuce and tomatoes from the garden. Of course there should have been wine and a lovingly prepared dressing of oil and vinegar, but Dulcie drank orange squash and ate mayonnaise that came from a bottle.
Barbara PymThe French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It's not that they feel that what you don't know won't hurt you; they feel that what you don't know won't hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking.
Fran LebowitzFood can be utilized for economic reasons, like the grain embargo of Carter 40 years ago. You have a political decision, you are going to move the flow of food in a part of the world and not another part of the world. And certainly now, with the way the country is polarized and all that, you wouldn't want to have a French menu, with a French thing - you'd be crucified! Or anything like that. You have to be a real American and apple pie and this and that.
Jacques PepinBecause I was born in Casablanca and my parents were from the south of Spain, I do not have a big central root in France. I feel French but in a few ways, not at all French.
Jean RenoThat amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.
Cornelia Otis SkinnerWell, I think they're going to learn that an awful lot of French people changed their minds. In 1940, the Third Republic had made a miserable mess of it.
Robert O. PaxtonAfter the French Revolution, it was not the treason of the king that was in question; it was the existence of the king. You have to be very careful when you judge and execute somebody for being a symbol.
Adam MichnikIf [Ho Chi Minh] had had carte blanche over his movement, would the results of the war have been different? That is difficult to say. In some cases - as in 1945 and 1946, he appeared to overestimate the possibility that the United States might decide to recognize his government and the independence of the DRV (although to be fair, from the outset he had warned that Washington might eventually decide to align with the French because of the Cold War).
William J. DuikerThe welfare state is institutionalized crime - 'organized plunder,' as the French economist Frederic Bastiat called it. It systematizes what is intrinsically wrong: forcing some people to support others. The Democrats favor the indefinite expansion of the welfare state, perpetually increasing the ratio of force to freedom in society.
Joseph SobranTheatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French.
Cyril CusackI wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.
Thomas KellerOne thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do.
Mads MikkelsenIn Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.
Julian BarnesThe Treatise of the Three Impostors is a book that enjoyed centuries of notorious nonexistence until (as Voltaire would say) it became necessary to invent it. Georges Minois writes with empathy, erudition, and a novelist's sense of buildup and timing, weaving in the parallel story of Europe's courageous freethinkers. In the face of today's social and even legal pressures against criticizing religion, it is good to see an honorable French tradition asserting itself.
Joscelyn GodwinShakespeare, he's in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well.
Bob DylanI still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.
Julia ChildThe religious conflicts of the Reformation era were never simply and only about religion, because religion during this era as in the Middle Ages that preceded it, informed and was meant to inform every domain of life. Violence involving religion and touching other areas of life took many forms: from the Protestant destruction of Catholic religious art and objects in iconoclasm, to Catholic executions of Protestants who refused to renounce their views, to major destructive conflicts such as the French Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years' War.
Brad Stephan GregorySomebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day - the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once.
Roy BluntEnglish people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.
Vivien LeighFrench parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren't panicked about their children's well-being. This calmer outlook makes them better at both establishing boundaries and giving their kids some autonomy.
Pamela DruckermanI did not want to be taken for a fool-the typical French reason for performing the worst of deeds without remorse.
Jules Amedee Barbey d'AurevillyI feel pretty stupid that I don't know any foreign languages. I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese.
Bill GatesThere was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.
Edgar Allan PoeThe EU Constitution is something new in human history. Though it is not as eloquent as the French and U.S. constitutions, it is the first governing document of its kind to expand the human franchise to the level of global consciousness. The language throughout the draft constitution speaks of universalism, making it clear that its focus is not a people, or a territory, or a nation, but rather the human race and the planet we inhabit.
Jeremy RifkinBryn ate her bagel in silence, and by the time she was finished, Liam had already neatly packed her overnight bag and loaded it in MacAllister's car. He even included a new dog bed for Mr. French to travel in confort. Lunch was in moducal little boxes. "I think he is Alfred." "Actually, I often wonder if he's Batman.
Rachel CaineHow can people say they don't eat eggplant when God loves the color and the French love the name? I don't under'stand.
Jeff SmithWhen Picasso painted in Paris, was he a Spanish or a French painter? It does not matter, he was Picasso, whatever the influences surrounding him. He simply chose Paris because it was the ideal place for him to sell his creation.
Jean-Jacques AnnaudThe annals of the French Revolution prove that the knowledge of the few cannot counteract the ignorance of the many.... The light of philosophy, when it is confined to a small minority, points out the possessors as the victims rather than the illuminators of the multitude.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeWhen called to the Council of the Twelve, October 4, 1963, he said in the Salt Lake Tabernacle: I think of a little sister, a French-Canadian sister, whose life was changed by the missionaries as her spirit was touched. As she said good-by to me and my wife in Quebec, she said, "President Monson, I may never see the Prophet. I may never hear the Prophet. But President, far better, now that I am a member of this Church, I can obey the Prophet."
Thomas S. MonsonFor the most part, French cities are much better preserved and looked after than British cities, because the bourgeoisie, the people who run the cities, have always lived centrally, which has only recently begun to happen in big cities in England. Traditionally in England, people who had any money would live out in the suburbs. Now, increasingly, people with money live in the cities, but this has changed only in the last 20 or so years.
Jonathan MeadesFor men who want to flee Family Man America and never come back, there is a guaranteed solution: homosexuality is the new French Foreign Legion.
Florence KingJust as the French of the nineteenth century invested their surplus capital in a railway-system in the belief that they would makemoney by it in this life, in the thirteenth they trusted their money to the Queen of Heaven because of their belief in her power to repay it with interest in the life to come.
Henry Adams"Parisienne" is about how you forge a life in a new place when you are 18. And it's about a Lebanese girl who discovers Paris and the French in the 90s, and through these encounters, discovers herself.
Danielle Arbid...the French Revolution gave rise to ideas which led beyond the ideas of the entire old world order. The revolutionary movement which began in 1789... gave rise to the communist idea which Babeuf's friend Buonarroti re-introduced in France after the Revolution of 1830. This idea, consistently developed, is the idea of the new world order.
Karl Marx