Francois-Rene De Chateaubriand Quotes

Music is the child of prayer, the companion of religion.

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

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.

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

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.

[L]ike a kingfisher I have made my nest on the waves.

One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.

Hesitating, at the threshold of various illusory paths of life, I considered them one by one, without daring to pursue any one of them.

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

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.

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

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 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.

One is not, my dear sir, a superior man merely because one sees the world in an odious light. One only hates mankind and life itself through failing to look deeply enough.

In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language . I have expressed my opinion concerning a number of English writers; it is very possible that I may be mistaken, that my admiration and my censure may be equally misplaced, and that my conclusions may appear impertinent and ridiculous on the other side of the Channel.

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.

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

I am Bourbon as a matter of honour , royalist according to reason and conviction, and republican by taste and character .

Let us not disdain glory too much; nothing is finer, except virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite both in this life.

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

The heart feels, the head compares.

One does not learn how to die by killing others.

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.