Alain Quotes

Ma grande objection à l’argent, c’est que l’argent est bête.

On prouve tout ce qu'on veut, et la vraie difficulté est de savoir ce qu'on veut prouver.

We are advised and led along by second-rate moralists who only know how to work themselves into a delirium and pass their illness onto others.

We must clear away, simplify, eradicate.

En cualquier contrato y en cualquier intercambio, ponte en el lugar del otro, pero con todo lo que sabes, y suponiéndote tan libre de necesidades como un hombre puede serlo, mira si en lugar, aprobarías ese intercambio o contrato

En réalité, les motifs qu'on a d'être heureux ou malheureux sont sans poids; tout dépend de notre corps.

When I was a young man I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I found her but, alas, she was waiting for the ideal man.

Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain immobile and fix a moment of man’s life, upon which one might endlessly meditate.

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.

May the Gods, if they did not die of boredom, never give you one of those flat kingdoms to govern; may lead you through mountain paths; may they give you for a companion a good Andalusian mule with eyes like wells, a brow like an anvil, and who stops dead in his tracks because he sees the shadow his ears make on the road in front of him.

An author of antiquity said that every event has two handles, and that, in order to carry it, there is no sense in choosing the one that hurts the hand.

Work is the best and worst of all things; the best of it is voluntary, the worst of it is servile.

Any kind of barbarism, once established, will last.

We must stand firm between two kinds of madness: the belief that we can do anything; and the belief that we can do nothing.

Every menial condition is bearable as long as one can exercise authority over one's work and be assured that the job is permanent.