André Malraux: Man

André Malraux was French novelist, art theorist and politician. Explore interesting quotes on man.

André Malraux: 74 quotes6 likes

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.”

“What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets.”

Antimémoires, preface (1967)
This preface paraphrases a line of dialogue from his own earlier work: "A man is what he hides: a miserable little pile of secrets."
Original: (fr) L'homme est ce qu'il cache : un misérable petit tas de secrets.

“It was not man, the individual, nor even the Supreme Being, that Robespierre set up against Christ; it was that Leviathan, the Nation.”

André Malraux

Part IV, Chapter I
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)
Context: An individualism which has got beyond the stage of hedonism tends to yield to the lure of the grandiose. It was not man, the individual, nor even the Supreme Being, that Robespierre set up against Christ; it was that Leviathan, the Nation.

“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.”

André Malraux

Part IV, Chapter I
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

“Though man's feeling for the other-worldly often has recourse to solitude, solitude does not foster its development; rather, it is nourished by communion, to which the church is more propitious than the cemetery.”

André Malraux

Part II, Chapter III
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

“The present age delights in unearthing a great man's secrets; for one thing because we like to temper our admiration and also perhaps we have a vague hope of finding a clue to genius in such "revelations."”

André Malraux

Part III, Chapter VI
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

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

André Malraux

La condition humaine [Man's Fate] (1933)