Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord:
23
citations
2
J'aime
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord citations célèbres
“C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.”
Misattributed
Faussement attribuée à Talleyrand et à Fouché, véritablement de Boulay de la Meurthe https://www.histoire-en-citations.fr/citations/c-est-pire-qu-un-crime-c-est-une-faute
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord Citations
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord: Citations en anglais
“They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.”
and variations
Recognized since the 19th century as a borrowing, possibly used by Talleyrand, from a 1796 letter to Mallet du Pan by French naval officer Charles Louis Etienne, Chevalier de Panat: Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien apprendre. "Nobody has been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything."
Sources: Craufurd Tate Ramage Ll.D.Beautiful thoughts from French and Italian authors, E. Howell (1866)
Misattributed
Qui n'a pas vécu dans les années voisines de 1789 ne sait pas ce que c'est le plaisir de vivre.
Reported in Memoirs pour Servir a l'histoire de nous Temps by François Guizot, Volume I, p. 6.
“It is not an event, it is a piece of news.”
Ce n'est pas un événement, c'est une nouvelle.
On hearing of Napoleon's death; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).
Reported in, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. (1917).
“Financiers flourish only when nations decline.”
Reported in, Bernard, J. F., Talleyrand: A Biography. (1973), p. 592
Reported in, Bernard, J. F., Talleyrand: A Biography. (1973), p. 592
“It is the beginning of the end.”
C'est le commencement de la fin.
Ascribed to Talleyrand in The Hundred Days (1815); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 66. Also attributed to General Augereau.
“You do not play then at whist, sir! Alas, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself!”
Vous ne jouez donc pas le whist, monsieur? Hélas! quelle triste vieilesse vous vous préparez!
Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 90.
“Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”
Noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, doux comme l'amour.
frequently misattributed to Talleyrand, no primary source exists, its not his style of speech, and he famously drank tea not coffee.
Misattributed
“It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.”
C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.
Reaction to the 1804 drumhead trial and execution of Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, on orders of Napoleon. Actually said by either Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe, legislative deputy from Meurthe (according to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) or Joseph Fouché, Napoleon's chief of police (according to John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), http://www.bartleby.com/100/758.1.html).
Misattributed
“There is no sentiment less aristocratic than that of nonbelief.”
Reported in, Bernard, J. F., Talleyrand: A Biography. (1973), p. 605
