André Malraux Quotes

Toute situation présente au moins un élément positif ; il faut le trouver et travailler dessus.

One cannot create an art that speaks to me when one has nothing to say.

In literature, as in Life, one is often astonished by what is chosen by others.

But, of course, of course, I imitated everyone! Except myself. — Pablo Picasso

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness.

Surely that little pseudo-gothic church on Broadway, hidden amongst the skyscrapers, is symbolic of the age! On the whole face of the globe the civilization that has conquered it has failed to build a temple or a tomb.

The men of my race arrive on wingless, eyeless ships.

Les blessures du plus profond amour suffisent à faire une assez belle haine - La Condition Humaine

The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves… is what I call hell.

Juger c'est, de toute évidence ne pas comprendre puisque, si l'on comprenait, on ne pourrait pas juger.

...For that matter, men are perhaps indifferent to power.... What fascinates them in this idea, you see, is not real power, it's the illusion of being able to do exactly as they please. The king's power is the power to govern, isn't it? But man has no urge to govern — he has an urge to compel, as you said. To be more than a man, in a world of men. To escape man's fate, I was saying. Not powerful — all-powerful. The visionary disease, of which the will to power is only the intellectual justification, is the will to god-head — every man dreams of being god.

Art is a revolt against fate.

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

On this earth of ours where everything is subject to the passing of time, one thing only is both subject to time and yet victorious over it: the work of art.

- [...] Ne trouvez-vous pas d'une stupidité caractéristique de l'espèce humaine qu'un homme qui n'a qu'une vie puisse la perdre pour une idée ?
- Il est très rare qu'un homme puisse supporter, comment dirais-je ? sa condition d'homme...