François-René de Chateaubriand Quotes

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.

Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.

There is nothing beautiful or sweet or great in life that is not mysterious.

Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly, though he may pass through and seem to inhabit a world quite foreign to it.

The most disastrous times have produced the greatest minds. The purest metal comes of the most ardent furnace; the most brilliant lightning come of the darkest clouds.

Every institution goes through three stages - utility, privilege, and abuse.

Atheism can benefit no class of people; neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid, nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward, nor the woman whose beauty and sensibility it mars, nor the mother, who has a son to lose, nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion.

The heart feels, the head compares.

I value in the cat the independent and almost ungrateful spirit which prevents her from attaching herself to any one, the indifference with which she passes from the salon to the housetop. When we caress her, she stretches herself and arches her back responsively; but this is because she feels an agreeable sensation, not because she takes a silly satisfaction, like the dog, in faithfully loving a thankless master. The cat lives alone, has no need of society, obeys only when she pleases, pretends to sleep that she may see more clearly, and scratches everything on which she can lay her paw.

Love decreases when it ceases to increase.

What importance can we attach to the things of this world? Friendship? It disappears when the one who is liked comes to grief, or the one who likes becomes powerful. Love? it is deceived, fleeting, or guilty. Fame? You share it with mediocrity or crime. Fortune? Could that frivolity be counted a blessing? All that remains are those so-called happy days that flow past unnoticed in the obscurity of domestic cares, leaving man with the desire neither to lose his life nor to begin it over.

You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.

Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity.

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

Forests were the first temples of the Divinity, and it is in the forests that men have grasped the first idea of architecture.

As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.

There are two consequences in history; an immediate one, which is instantly recognized, and one in the distance, which is not at first perceived. These consequences often contradict each other; ... look to the end of an accomplished fact, and you will see that it has always produced the contrary of what was expected from it.

Achilles exists only through Homer . Take away the art of writing from this world , and you will probably take away its glory .

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.

One does not learn how to die by killing others.

Talent is nothing but long impatience.

We must not always try to plumb the depths of the human heart; the truths it contains are among those that are best seen in half-light or in perspective.

Justice is the bread of the nation; it is always hungry for it.

My downfall made a great noise: those who appeared most satisfied criticized the manner of it.

Alexander created cities everywhere he passed: I have left dreams everywhere I have trailed my life.