Émile Chartier quotes

Émile Chartier was a French philosopher and essayist, widely known by his pseudonym "Alain." His writings deeply influenced French intellectual thought in the early twentieth century. He emphasized the importance of critical thinking and civic responsibility. Here are 38 of his quotes:

If religion is only human, and its form is man's form, it follows that everything in religion is true. (Émile Chartier)
As opposed to the incoherent spectacle of the world, the real is what is expected, what is obtained and what is discovered by our own movement. It is what is sensed as being within our own power and always responsive to our action. View quote
Émile Chartier
We prove what we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove. View quote
Émile Chartier
It is the human condition to question one god after another, one appearance after another, or better, one apparition after another, always pursuing the truth of the imagination, which is not the same as the truth of appearance. View quote
Émile Chartier
When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible. View quote
Émile Chartier
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea. View quote
Émile Chartier
Our errors perish before we do. Let's not mummify them and keep them around. View quote
Émile Chartier
The most difficult thing in the world is to say thinkingly what everybody says without thinking. View quote
Émile Chartier
Each one gave the other the only assistance one man can expect from another: that his friend support him and ask only that he remain himself. It is no great accomplishment to take people as they are, and we must always do so eventually, but to wish them to be as they are, that is a genuine love. View quote
Émile Chartier
Thought is saying no, and it is to itself that thought says no. View quote
Émile Chartier
Never be insolent unless it is a deliberate decision, and only toward a man more powerful than yourself. (Émile Chartier)
It is very true that we ought to think of the happiness of others; but it is not often enough said that the best thing we can do for those who love us is to be happy ourselves. View quote
Émile Chartier
We must clear away, simplify, eradicate. View quote
Émile Chartier
When the pack is out hunting, the dogs do not fight among themselves. View quote
Émile Chartier
Any kind of barbarism, once established, will last. View quote
Émile Chartier
May the Gods, if they did not die of boredom, never give you one of those flat kingdoms to govern; may lead you through mountain paths; may they give you for a companion a good Andalusian mule with eyes like wells, a brow like an anvil, and who stops dead in his tracks because he sees the shadow his ears make on the road in front of him. View quote
Émile Chartier
It is clear that in mulling over harsh judgments, sinister predictions, and bad memories, we fashion our own sadness; in a certain sense, we savor it. View quote
Émile Chartier
We are advised and led along by second-rate moralists who only know how to work themselves into a delirium and pass their illness onto others. View quote
Émile Chartier
Humanity will have to extricate itself from the bags created by false moralists, according to whom we taste happiness and then pass judgment on it, as if it were a piece of fruit. But I maintain that even for a piece of fruit we can do something to help it taste good. This is even truer of marriage and every other human relationship; these things are not meant to be tasted or passively accepted; they must be made. A relationship is not like a bit of shade where one is comfortable or uncomfortable depending on the weather and the way the wind is blowing. On the contrary, it is a place of miracles, where the magician makes the rain and the good weather. View quote
Émile Chartier
Every menial condition is bearable as long as one can exercise authority over one's work and be assured that the job is permanent. View quote
Émile Chartier
When people ask me if the division between parties of the right and parties of the left, men of the right and men of the left, still makes sense, the first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the left. (Émile Chartier)
In short, the important thing is to get started. No matter how; then there will be time to ask yourself where you are going. View quote
Émile Chartier
Aristotle's pupil already realized that we have no power at all over our passions as long as we do not know their true causes. Many men have refuted fear, and with sound arguments. But a man who is afraid does not listen to arguments; he listens to the beating of his heart and the pulsating of his blood. View quote
Émile Chartier
Everybody continually tries to get away with as much as he can; and society is a marvelous machine which allows decent people to be cruel without realizing it. View quote
Émile Chartier
Politeness is for people toward whom we feel indifferent, and moods, both good and bad, are for those we love. View quote
Émile Chartier