François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand

Look around the forests where Washington’s sword once gleamed, and what do you find? Tombstones? No: a world! Washington left the United States as a trophy on his battleground. Bonaparte has nothing in common with this serious American.

Could Washington the Dictator be anything other than a rustic, prodding his oxen with a goad and steadily gripping the handle of his plow? But when I did go to him with my letter of introduction, I discovered the simplicity of an old Roman. A small house, which looked just the same as the neighboring houses, was the palace of the President of the United States.

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

Chateaubriand was attached to the past and its centuries-old traditions, but he was also a liberal, open to modernity: this is one thing that sets him apart in the history of ideas. He had been repulsed by the discourse and the violence of the French revolutionaries and was deeply impressed by the powerful composure of George Washington, “the representative of the needs, ideas, intelligence, and opinions of his epoch.

La mort est belle, elle est notre amie : néanmoins, nous ne la reconnaissons pas, parce qu'elle se présente à nous masquée et que son masque nous épouvante.

I can understand the cruel gaiety of Cervantes’s masterpiece only through a melancholy meditation: considering the whole of human existence, weighing good and evil, one might be tempted to wish for any accident that brings forgetfulness, as a means of escaping from oneself.

Washington went to his grave before even the smallest bit of fame attached itself to my footsteps; I passed before him as the most anonymous entity. He was in all his glory, I in all my obscurity, and I doubt whether my name stayed more than a day in his memory. I am nevertheless happy that his gaze once fell upon me. I would feel warmed by it for the rest of my life. There is a virtue in the gaze of a great man.

A man may understand the power of a king without being a king himself; but he cannot understand the divinity without being God

Homem, tua estação migratória ainda não chegou. Espera que se levante o vento da morte, então desferirás o teu vôo para esses países ignorados que o teu coração deseja.

Justice is the bread of the nation, it is always hungry for it.

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

I have borne the musket of a soldier, the traveller’s cane, and the pilgrim’s staff: as a sailor my fate has been as inconstant as the wind: a kingfisher, I have made my nest among the waves. I have been party to peace and war: I have signed treaties, protocols, and along the way published numerous works. I have been made privy to party secrets, of court and state: I have viewed closely the rarest disasters, the greatest good fortune, the highest reputations. I have been present at sieges, congresses, conclaves, at the restoration and demolition of thrones. I have made history, and been able to write it. ... Within and alongside my age, perhaps without wishing or seeking to, I have exerted upon it a triple influence, religious, political and literary.

One does not learn how to die by killing others.

Quanto durerebbe se fosse vero? il tempo di stringerti tra le braccia. La gioventù rende bello tutto, persino l'infelicità. Incanta quando con i riccioli di una chioma bruna può asciugare le lacrime man mano che scorrono sulle guance. Ma la vecchiaia rende brutta persino la felicità; nell'infelicità è ancora peggio: i radi capelli bianchi che restano sulla testa calva di un uomo non saranno mai abbastanza lunghi da asciugare le lacrime che cadono dai suoi occhi.

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