Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (French Writer, Statesman)

François-Auguste-René, Vicomte de Châteaubriand (1768–1848) was a French author and diplomat. One of France’s first Romantic writers, he was the preeminent literary figure in France in the early 19th century and had a profound influence on the youth of his day.

Born in Saint-Malo, Brittany, Châteaubriand sailed to North America in 1791. Returning to France, he joined the army of the émigrés, and lived in London 1793–1800, teaching and translating.

Châteaubriand’s The Genius of Christianity (1802) was a reaction to Enlightenment attacks on Catholicism and established his literary reputation. Atala (1801) and René (1805) are tragic love stories set in the American wilderness. Génie du christianisme (1802; The Genius of Christianity, 1813,) a vindication of the Church of Rome, made him prominent among French men of letters.

After 1803, he held important diplomatic posts for both Napoleon and the Bourbons and was the minister of foreign affairs 1823–24. In 1830, he resigned from politics and wrote his Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe (‘Memoirs from Beyond the Grave.’) Fragments of this stirring autobiography were translated as Memoirs in three volumes in 1848; the complete work was published in six volumes in 1902.

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The original writer is not he who does not imitate others, but he who can be imitated by none.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Writers

History is not a work of philosophy, it is a painting; it is necessary to combine narration with the representation of the subject, that is, it is necessary simultaneously to design and to paint; it is necessary to give to men the language and the sentiments of their times, not to regard the past in the light of our own opinion.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: History

There are two things which grow stronger in the breast of man, in proportion as he advances in years: the love of country and religion. Let them be never so much forgotten in youth, they sooner or later present themselves to us arrayed in all their charms, and excite in the recesses of our hearts an attachment justly due to their beauty.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Age

Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads on them.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Memory

Aristocracy has three successive ages: the age of superiorities, that of privileges, and that of vanities.—Having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away in the third.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Aristocracy

Let us not disdain glory too much; nothing is finer, except virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite both in this life.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Glory, Fame

The morning of life is like the dawn of day, full of purity, of imagery, and harmony.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Youth

As soon as true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Thought, Knowledge

One can never be the judge of another’s grief. That which is a sorrow to one, to another is joy. Let us not dispute with any one concerning the reality of his sufferings; it is with sorrows as with countries—each man has his own.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Sorrow

Men are ready to believe everything when they believe nothing.—They have diviners when they cease to have prophets; witchcraft when they cease to have religious ceremonies; and they open the caves of sorcery when they shut the temples of the Lord.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand

Music is the child of prayer, the companion of religion.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Music

Without taste genius is only a sublime kind of folly. That sure touch which the lyre gives back the right note and nothing more, is even a rarer gift than the creative faculty itself.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Style, Taste

Justice is the bread of the nation; it is always hungry for it.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Justice

Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Perfection

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Writing, Innovation, Writers, Originality

A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes.—The flowers fading like our hopes, the leaves falling like our years, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives—all bear secret relations to our destinies.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: Autumn

Grecian history is a poem; Latin history, a picture; modern history a chronicle.
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand
Topics: History

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