French Quotes

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.

There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning.

It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action.

No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.

The more one judges, the less one loves.

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible.

Painting is a language which cannot be replaced by another language. I don't know what to say about what I paint, really.

I refuse to confide and don't like it when people write about art.

The craft of painting has virtually disappeared. There is hardly anyone left who really possesses it. For evidence one has only to look at the painters of this century.

The best way to begin is to say: Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at his paintings.

I will always find even the worst paintings that attempt some kind of representation better than the best invented paintings.

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.

One must always draw, draw with the eyes, when one cannot draw with a pencil.

I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.

I wasn't really naked. I simply didn't have any clothes on.

Beautiful? It's all a question of luck. I was born with good legs. As for the rest... beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.

I believe in prayer. It's the best way we have to draw strength from heaven.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

Evil is the moment when I lack the strength to be true to the Good that compels me.