François-René de Chateaubriand quotes

François-René de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, and diplomat, considered one of the founders of Romanticism in French literature. His works explored themes of nature, emotion, and the search for meaning in a changing world. He greatly influenced future generations of writers and remains a key figure in literary and political history. Here are 34 of his quotes:

One does not learn how to die by killing others.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Every institution goes through three stages - utility, privilege, and abuse.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Achilles exists only through Homer . Take away the art of writing from this world, and you will probably take away its glory .

François-René de Chateaubriand

The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.

François-René de Chateaubriand

As soon as a 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.

François-René de Chateaubriand

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.

François-René de Chateaubriand

My downfall made a great noise: those who appeared most satisfied criticized the manner of it.

François-René de Chateaubriand

I am Bourbon as a matter of honour, royalist according to reason and conviction, and republican by taste and character.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads them down with.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Though we have not employed the arguments usually advanced by the apologists of Christianity, we have arrived by a different chain of reasoning at the same conclusion: Christianity is perfect; men are imperfect. Now, a perfect consequence cannot spring from an imperfect principle. Christianity, therefore, is not the work of men. If Christianity is not the work of man, it can have come from none but God. If it came from God, men cannot have acquired a knowledge of it except by revelation. Therefore, Christianity is a revealed religion.

François-René de Chateaubriand

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation.

François-René de Chateaubriand

In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Aristocracy has three successive ages, - the age of superiorities, the age of privileges, and the age of vanities; having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away in the third.

François-René de Chateaubriand

I wept, and I believed.

François-René de Chateaubriand

It is a long way from Combourg to Berlin, from a youthful dreamer to an old minister. I find among the words preceding these: ‘In how many places have I already continued writing these Memoirs, and in what place will I finish them?'

François-René de Chateaubriand

Alexander created cities everywhere he passed: I have left dreams everywhere I have trailed my life.

François-René de Chateaubriand

Justice is the bread of the nation; it is always hungry for it.

François-René de Chateaubriand

How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence!

François-René de Chateaubriand

A degree of silence envelops Washington's actions; he moved slowly; one might say that he felt charged with future liberty, and that he feared to compromise it. It was not his own destiny that inspired this new species of hero: it was that of his country; he did not allow himself to enjoy what did not belong to him; but from that profound humility what glory emerged!

François-René de Chateaubriand

I remember Castelnau: like me Ambassador to England, who wrote like me a narrative of his life in London. On the last page of Book VII, he says to his son: ‘I will deal with this event in Book VIII,' and Book VIII of Castelnau's Memoirs does not exist: that warns me to take advantage of being alive.

François-René de Chateaubriand

I behold the light of a dawn whose sunrise I shall never see. It only remains for me to sit down at the edge of my grave; then I shall descend boldly, crucifix in hand, into eternity.

François-René de Chateaubriand