#France Quotes

“Kings are for nations in their swaddling-clothes: France has attained her majority.”

“The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he, no one is more openly frivolous and idle, no one appears more heedless. But this is misleading. He is given to every kind of listlessness, but when there is glory to be won he may be inspired with every kind of fury. Give him a pike and he will enact the tenth of August, a musket and you have Austerlitz. He was the springboard of Napoleon and the mainstay of Danton. At the cry of "la patrie" he enrols, and at the call of liberty he tears up the pavements. Beware of him!”

“It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes.”

“France lost a great novel last night.”

“The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people.”

“France has never gotten over the fact that it was once a great power and is now just a great nuisance.”

“While learning the language in France a young man's morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe.”

“Every man has two countries: his own and France.”

“France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one, and the first choice of all not under those ties.”

“So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.”

“France has usually been governed by prostitutes”

“France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.”

“In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel.”

“What is a throne? - a bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state- I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public - people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.”

“France always has plenty men of talent, but it is always deficient in men of action and high character.”

“The moment Germany rises as a great power, France gains a new importance as a cultural power.”

“In the same period that the Americans have lived under one constitution our French friends notched up five. A Punch cartoon has a 19th century Englishman asking a librarian for a copy of the French constitution, only to be told: 'I am sorry Sir, we do not stock periodicals.'”

“So far, the Far Eastern focal point of danger is the most active.It is possible, however, that the center of the menace may shift to Europe. Evidence of this is provided, for instance, by [Adolf] Hitler's recent interview given to a French paper. In this interview, Hitler seems to attempt to say peaceful things. But this "peacefulness" of his is so thickly interspersed with threats against France and the Soviet Union that nothing remains of the "peacefulness".”

“Everything is on such a clear financial basis in France. It is the simplest country to live in. No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason. If you want people to like you you have only to spend a little money. I spent a little money and the waiter liked me. He appreciated my valuable qualities. He would be glad to see me, and would want me at his table. It would be a sincere liking because it would have a sound basis. I was back in France.”

“France: As a professional journalist, I like the idea of a society where it is considered an acceptable occupation to basically sit around and drink.”

“I took an estimated two thousand years of high school French, and when I finally got to France, I discovered that I didn't know one single phrase that was actually useful in a real-life French situation.”