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Quotes from Mémoires d'outre-tombe — François-René de Chateaubriand

1768–1848 France

← All quotes by François-René de Chateaubriand

11 quotes

I have explored the seas of the Old World and the New, and trodden the soil of the four quarters of the Earth.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence!

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

One does not learn how to die by killing others.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

I behold the light of a dawn whose sunrise I shall never see. It only remains for me to sit down at the edge of my grave; then I shall descend boldly, crucifix in hand, into eternity.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

The scenes of tomorrow no longer concern me; they call for other artists: your turn, gentlemen!

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

My downfall made a great noise: those who appeared most satisfied criticized the manner of it.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads them down with.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

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.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

New storms will arise; one can believe in calamities to come which will surpass the afflictions we have been overwhelmed by in the past; already, men are thinking of bandaging their old wounds to return to the battlefield.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

Aristocracy has three successive ages, — the age of superiorities, the age of privileges, and the age of vanities; having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away in the third.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

It is a long way from Combourg to Berlin, from a youthful dreamer to an old minister. I find among the words preceding these: ‘In how many places have I already continued writing these Memoirs, and in what place will I finish them?'

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: François-René de Chateaubriand (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.