André Malraux Quotes

1901–1976 France

André Georges Malraux (November 3, 1901 – November 23, 1976) was a French novelist, adventurer, art historian and statesman. He served as Minister for Cultural Affairs from 1958 to 1969.

France
Novelists
Philosophers

Also known as: Andre Malraux, Malraux, Malraux, André

Random André Malraux quote

31 quotes

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

La condition humaine [Man's Fate (1933)

History may clarify our understanding of the supreme work of art, but can never account for it completely; for the Time of art is not the same as the Time of history.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

The human mind invents its Puss-in-Boots and its coaches that change into pumpkins at midnight because neither the believer nor the atheist is completely satisfied with appearances.

In ceasing to subordinate creative power to any supreme value, modern art has brought home to us the presence of that creative power throughout the whole history of art.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

Freedom is not an exchange — it is freedom.

La condition humaine [Man's Fate (1933)

The great Christian art did not die because all possible forms had been used up; it died because faith was being transformed into piety.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?

La condition humaine [Man's Fate (1933)

The artist is not the transcriber of the world, he is its rival.

No one can endure his own solitude.

On peut aimer que le sens du mot “art” soit tenter de donner conscience à des hommes de la grandeur qu’ils ignorent en eux.

Préface du Temps du mépris (1935)

Our art culture makes no attempt to search the past for precedents, but transforms the entire past into a sequence of provisional responses to a problem that remains intact.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets.

Once the masterpiece has emerged, the lesser works surrounding it fall into place; and it then gives the impression of having been led up to and foreseeable, though actually it is inconceivable — or, rather, it can only be conceived of once it is there for us to see it.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved.

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.

The ordinary man puts up a struggle against all that is not himself, whereas it is against himself, in a limited but all-essential field, that the artist has to battle.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

A large share of our art heritage is now derived from peoples whose idea of art was quite other than ours, and even from peoples to whom the very idea of art meant nothing.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

Athirst for personal salvation, the West forgets that many religions had but a vague notion of the life beyond the grave; true, all great religions stake a claim on eternity, but not necessarily on man's eternal life.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence (1951)

Chanel, General De Gaulle and Picasso are the three most important figures of our time.

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

L'espoir [Man's Hope (1938)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: André Malraux (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.