Henri Barbusse quotes - page 2

Henri Barbusse was a French novelist, journalist, and political activist, best known for his anti-war novel "Le Feu" ("Under Fire"). His works reflected deep pacifist convictions and strong criticism of war and social injustice. He became a prominent figure in the pacifist and communist movements of his time. Here are 225 of his quotes:

We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.

Henri Barbusse

"I have such respect for the actual truth that there are moments when I do not dare to call things by their name," the poet ended.

Henri Barbusse

Speech perpetuates vision. We carry no light; we are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; truth is made by the mouths of men. The wind of words - what is it? It is our breath - not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries. In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring. The cry comes out of us, it is as living as a child. The cry goes on, and makes the appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries.

Henri Barbusse

The others, one by one, straighten themselves. The storm is falling more heavily on the expanse of flayed and martyred fields. The day is full of night.

Henri Barbusse

Defeated, I followed my impulse casually. I followed a woman who had been watching me from her corner. Then we walked side by side. We said a few words; she took me home with her. Then I went through the banal scene. It passed like a sudden hurtling–down. Again, I am on the pavement and I am not at peace as I had hoped. An immense confusion bewilders me. It is as if I could not see things as they were. I see too deep and too much.

Henri Barbusse

I am not slighting intellect; but life is common to us along with poorer living things than ourselves. He who kills an animal, however lowly it may be, unless there is necessity, is an assassin.

Henri Barbusse

I - my heart - a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is mine, it is ours. The heart - that wound which we have. I have compassion on myself.

Henri Barbusse

All that we can remember is almost nothing. Memory is greater than we are, but memory is living and mortal as well.

Henri Barbusse

I am like a poet on the threshold of a work, an accursed, sterile poet who will leave no glory behind, to whom chance lent the truth that genius would have given him, a frail work which will pass away with me, mortal and sealed to others like myself, but a sublime work nevertheless, which will show the essential outlines of life and relate the drama of dramas.

Henri Barbusse

When I have spoken thus, we are no longer the same, for there are no more lies.

Henri Barbusse

Night fell. I looked for a word like mine, a word to lean upon, a word to sustain me. And it seemed to me that I was going along groping my way as if expecting some one to come from round the corner and tell me everything.

Henri Barbusse

Each country will be a moral force, and no longer a brutal force; while all brutal forces clash with themselves, all moral forces make mighty harmony together.

Henri Barbusse

Once, after we had recalled to each other an enchanted summer evening, I said, "We loved each other," and she answered, "I remember."

Henri Barbusse

Marie falls back upon her idea, obdurately, and says, "A woman only lives by love and for love. When she's no longer good for that she's no longer anything." She repeats, "You see - I'm nothing any more." Ah, she is at the bottom of her abyss! She is at the extremity of a woman's mourning! She is not thinking only of me. Her thought is higher and vaster. She is thinking of all the woman she is, of all that love is, of all possible things when she says, "I'm no longer anything." And I - I am only he who is present with her just now, and no help whatever is left her to look for from any one. I should like to pacify and console this woman who is gentleness and simplicity and who is sinking there while she lightly touches me with her presence - but exactly because she is there I cannot lie to her, I can do nothing against her grief, her perfect, infallible grief. "Ah!" she cries, "if we came to life again!"

Henri Barbusse

I stood still, a prey to a thousand thoughts, stifled in the robe of the evening.

Henri Barbusse

Quite near, one face is looking sadly at me, as it lolls to one side. It is coming out of the bottom of the heap, as a wild animal might. Its hair falls back like nails. The nose is a triangular hole and a little of the whiteness of human marble dots it. There are no lips left, and the two rows of teeth show up like lettering. The cheeks are sprinkled with moldy traces of beard. This body is only mud and stones. This face, in front of my own, is only a consummate mirror.

Henri Barbusse

This is the subject," said Pierre Villiers. "It gives me scope to amuse and tell the truth at the same time. A man pierces a hole in the wall of a boarding-house room, and watches what is going on in the next room.

Henri Barbusse

Will not thoughtful faces arise out of the darkness? (For this is Chaos and the animal Kingdom; and Reason being no more, she has yet to be born.

Henri Barbusse

I hear no more sounds. Marie has finished. She comes up beside me. We have sought each other and come together as often as possible since the day when we saw so clearly that we no longer loved each other!

Henri Barbusse

She had fallen asleep with her head on her lover's knees. He looked at her and smiled. An expression of pity and benevolence flitted across his face. His hands stretched out part way toward the sleeping woman with the gentleness of strength. I saw the glorious pride of condescension and charity in this man whom a woman prostrate before him deified.

Henri Barbusse

We go back home. We wait and then have dinner. We live these few hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is a sort of imitation of life by phantoms, by beings who, in the distance are beings, but close by - so close - are phantoms!

Henri Barbusse

I proclaim the inevitable advent of the universal republic. Not the transient backslidings, nor the darkness and the dread, nor the tragic difficulty of uplifting the world everywhere at once will prevent the fulfillment of international truth.

Henri Barbusse