Top 15 André Malraux Quotes

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

What is Man? A miserable little pile of secrets.

The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness.

I don't argue with my enemies; I explain to their children.

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

Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.

In a world in which everything is subject to the passing of time, art alone is both subject to time and yet victorious over it.

Be careful — with quotations, you can damn anything.

...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.

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

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.

There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.

An art book is a museum without walls.

L'amitié, dit-il, ce n'est pas d'être avec ses amis quand ils ont raison, c'est être avec eux même quand ils ont tord.

La vérité d’un homme c’est d’abord ce qu’il cache.