Alain Quotes (35 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Alain: 35 quotes 6 likes

Famous Alain Quotes

“When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible.”

Alain

Introduction
The Gods (1934)

“Any kind of barbarism, once established, will last.”

Alain

Men of Action
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea.”

Alain

Propos sur le Religion no. 74 (1938), under the pen name Alain.
Alternate translation: “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when it's the only one we have.” IZQuotes https://izquotes.com/quote/%C3%A9mile-chartier/nothing-is-more-dangerous-than-an-idea-when-you-have-only-one-idea-390165 (retrieved 10/30/18).

“May the Gods, if they did not die of boredom, never give you one of those flat kingdoms to govern; may lead you through mountain paths; may they give you for a companion a good Andalusian mule with eyes like wells, a brow like an anvil, and who stops dead in his tracks because he sees the shadow his ears make on the road in front of him.”

Alain

The King is Bored
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“It is clear that in mulling over harsh judgments, sinister predictions, and bad memories, we fashion our own sadness; in a certain sense, we savor it.”

Alain

Sad Mary
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Happiness is a reward that comes to those that have not looked for it.”

Alain

Victories
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Alain Quotes about people

“When people ask me if the division between parties of the right and parties of the left, men of the right and men of the left, still makes sense, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the left.”

Alain

Statement of 1931, as quoted by Marcel Gauchet, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, Vol. 1 - Conflicts and Divisions, edited by Pierre Nora and Lawrence Kritzman, p. 266 ISBN 9780231084048

“Politeness is for people toward whom we feel indifferent, and moods, both good and bad, are for those we love.”

Alain

Domestic Tranquility
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Everybody continually tries to get away with as much as he can; and society is a marvelous machine which allows decent people to be cruel without realizing it.”

Alain

Attitudes Toward Neighbors
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Each one gave the other the only assistance one man can expect from another: that his friend support him and ask only that he remain himself. It is no great accomplishment to take people as they are, and we must always do so eventually, but to wish them to be as they are, that is a genuine love.”

Alain

Poets
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Alain Quotes

“Man himself is an enigma in motion”

Alain

Introduction
The Gods (1934)
Context: Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain immobile and fix a moment of man’s life, upon which one might endlessly meditate.

“Every boat is copied from another boat…”

Alain

Propos d’un Normand (1908); as quoted in "Natural selection and cultural rates of change" by D. S. Rogers and P. R. Ehrlich (2008) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105:3416–3420
Context: Every boat is copied from another boat... Let’s reason as follows in the manner of Darwin. It is clear that a very badly made boat will end up at the bottom after one or two voyages, and thus never be copied... One could then say, with complete rigor, that it is the sea herself who fashions the boats, choosing those which function and destroying the others.

“One must preach life, not death; spread hope, not fear and cultivate joy, man's most valuable treasure. That is the secret of the greatest of the wise, and it wil be the light of tomorrow.”

Alain

On Pity
Alain On Happiness (1928)
Context: One must preach life, not death; spread hope, not fear and cultivate joy, man's most valuable treasure. That is the secret of the greatest of the wise, and it wil be the light of tomorrow. Passions are sad. Hatred is sad. Joy destroys passions and hatred. Let us begin by telling ourselves that sadness is never noble, beautiful or useful.

Life , Death , Secret , Fear

“We are advised and led along by second-rate moralists who only know how to work themselves into a delirium and pass their illness onto others.”

Alain

The Eloquence of Our Passions
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Work is the best and worst of all things; the best of it is voluntary, the worst of it is servile.”

Alain

Happy Farmers
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Humanity will have to extricate itself from the bags created by false moralists, according to whom we taste happiness and then pass judgment on it, as if it were a piece of fruit. But I maintain that even for a piece of fruit we can do something to help it taste good. This is even truer of marriage and every other human relationship; these things are not meant to be tasted or passively accepted; they must be made. A relationship is not like a bit of shade where one is comfortable or uncomfortable depending on the weather and the way the wind is blowing. On the contrary, it is a place of miracles, where the magician makes the rain and the good weather.”

Alain

On Private Life
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Marriage , Way , Help , Dependency

“Our errors perish before we do. Let's not mummify them and keep them around.”

Alain

Our Future
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Error

“Aristotle's pupil already realized that we have no power at all over our passions as long as we do not know their true causes. Many men have refuted fear, and with sound arguments. But a man who is afraid does not listen to arguments; he listens to the beating of his heart and the pulsating of his blood.”

Alain

Bucephalus
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Men , Fear , Passion , Heart

“Every menial condition is bearable as long as one can exercise authority over one's work and be assured that the job is permanent.”

Alain

Happy Farmers
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Exercises

“In short, the important thing is to get started. No matter how; then there will be time to ask yourself where you are going.”

Alain

Fate
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Time

“Idleness is the mother of all vices, but also of all virtues.”

Alain

Men of Action
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Obligation spoils everything.”

Alain

Happy New Year
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Untie, liberate, and do not be afraid. He who is free is disarmed.”

Alain

Poets
Alain On Happiness (1928)

“Thought is saying no, and it is to itself that thought says no.”

Alain

Propos sur la religion [Remarks on religion] (1924)
Le Citoyen contre les Pouvoirs [The Citizen against the Powers] (1926)
Variant: To think is to say no.

“Never be insolent unless it is a deliberate decision, and only toward a man more powerful than yourself.”

Alain

Giving Pleasure
Alain On Happiness (1928)

Decision

“If religion is only human, and its form is man’s form, it follows that everything in religion is true.”

Alain

Introduction
The Gods (1934)

Religion

“We prove what we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.”

Alain

On prouve tout ce qu'on veut, et la vraie difficulté est de savoir ce qu'on veut prouver.
Système des Beaux-Arts (1920), as quoted in The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less) by John M. Shanahan, p. 34
Variant translation: We prove anything we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.