French National Quotes & Sayings

You have to begin to put the infrastructure in place to put in high-speed trains ... It should be a national priority. If the French can do it, why cant we? — Gordon Bethune

It is overlooked, perhaps forgotten, by almost everyone today that we were there to defend Europe against the multiple threats represented by the Allies. We saw the British as an outdated Imperial force, organised by freemasons, who sought to turn the clock back one hundred years to the days when their word was the law around the world. Why should they be entitled to install their freemason puppet, De Gaulle, in France, to rule as a proxy? The Vichy government had three consistent points in its propaganda regarding the threats to the French people: these were De Gaulle, freemasonry and communism. As for the American state, we perceived that as controlled by the forces of international finance and banking, who wished to abolish national governments and have the world run by banks and corporations. — Holger Eckhertz

In all this talk about giving birth, I never hear anyone mention that the last time the World Health Organization ranked national health-care systems, France's was first, while America's was thirty-seventh. Instead, we Anglos focus on how the French system is overmedicalized and hostile to the "natural." Pregnant Message members fret that French doctors will induce labor, force them to have epidurals, then secretly bottle-feed their newborns so they won't be able to breast-feed. — Pamela Druckerman

The war, like all wars, was proving more expensive for the Bourbons than planned. Since the alliance, France had advanced to the Americans over 100 million livres, about $25 million, in loans, supplies and gifts, and before it was over the cost of the American war for France would amount, by some estimates, to 1.5 billion livres, a historic sum that was virtually to bankrupt the French national budget and require the summoning of the Estates General in 1789 that led to the arrest of the King and the sequence of eruptions that became the French Revolution. — Barbara W. Tuchman

There's no Coastguard in France. They let the French Navy do it. They have to give them something to do. It's not good for national pride to have to disband it so they turned it into a Coastguard. I think it does a few other bits and bobs too. — Tim FitzHigham

Six months after 9/11, Jean-Marie Le Pen was almost elected president of France. There were a number of leaders and a number of parties running in the French national elections that year in the spring of 2002. But it ended up being not just a shock across France, and not just a shock across Europe. But it ended up being almost a worldwide shock when in the spring of 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen came in second in those national elections. That put him in a two-man runoff for the presidency of France, spring of 2002. — Rachel Maddow

Americans are funny," Terence O'Donnell pointed out in a conversation we had about our national need to own as much as possible, including our joy.
"We look for a state of happiness," said O'Donnell. "But the French know that's ridiculous. They accept that there are only les petits bonheurs, the little happinesses, only the moments: a sudden view, awakening to a superb morning, the sun's warmth, a cooling breeze. — Lionel Fisher

The past was a consumable, subject to the national preference for familiar products. And history, in America, is a dish best served plain. The first course could include a dollop of Italian in 1492, but not Spanish spice or French sauce or too much Indian corn. Nothing too filling or fancy ahead of the turkey and pumpkin pie, just the way Grandma used to cook it. — Tony Horwitz

There are fifty American states, but they add up to one nation in a way the twenty-eight sovereign states of the European Union never can. Most of the EU states have a national identity far stronger, more defined, than any American state. It is easy to find a French person who is French first, European second, or one who pays little allegiance to the idea of Europe, but an American identifies with their Union in a way few Europeans do theirs. This is explained by the geography, and the history of the unification of the United States. — Tim Marshall

The French have got to understand that a film is so expensive that it can no longer afford to be regional or even national in scope. — Jean-Jacques Annaud

Many people in this country who want to see us the minority, and who don't want to see us taking too militant or too uncompromising a stand, are absolutely against the successful regrouping or organising of any faction in this country whose thought and whose thinking pattern is international rather than national ... There's a world wide revolution going on, it goes beyond Mississippi, it goes beyond Alabama, it goes beyond Harlem. What is it revolting against? The power structure. The American power structure? No. The French power structure? No. The English power structure? No. Then, what power structure? An international Western power structure. — Malcolm X

When I am drunk I am at my best. It is the national knack of the French. — Orson Scott Card

These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages. — Edward Sapir

And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a halfdozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn't it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy? — Hilary Mantel

The sentiment of national honor is never more than half extinguished in the French. It takes only a spark to re-kindle it. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Cravats grow higher, as if they mean to protect the throat. The highest cravats in public life will be worn by Citizen Antoine Saint-Just, of the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. In the dark and harrowing days of '94, an obscene feminine inversion will appear: a thin crimson ribbon, worn round a bare white neck. — Hilary Mantel

The passion with which native intellectuals defend the existence of their national culture may be a source of amazement; but those who condemn this exaggerated passion are strangely apt to forget that their own psyche and their own selves are conveniently sheltered behind a French or German culture which has given full proof of its existence and which is uncontested. — Frantz Fanon

Nate had been born and raised in British Columbia, and Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. "Be polite" was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people maintained the "dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender" mind-set of the French; and hockey, in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check, and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually-coincidentally- in French.) — Christopher Moore

The spectacle of this lovely nation, with its great agricultural wealth and its cultural riches , continually stepping on its own toes, made me wonder if France suffered a kind of national neurosis — Julia Child

I am happy to the spokeswoman for this French youth that tomorrow will be spearhead new hope in the shape of the National Front. — Marion Marechal-Le Pen

Some write that I'm a genius, others say that I'm disrespectful towards their country ... If you remember in 1993 I squatted to tie my shoe during the French national anthem. — Hristo Stoichkov

In Russia, the person who put Sevastopol on the literary map was Leo Tolstoy, a veteran of the siege. His fictionalized memoir The Sebastopol Sketches made him a national celebrity. Already with the first installment of the work published, Tsar Alexander II saw the propaganda value of the piece and ordered it translated into French for dissemination abroad. That made the young author very happy. Compared with Tolstoy's later novels, The Sebastopol Sketches hasn't aged well, possibly because this is not a heartfelt book. As the twenty-six-year-old Tolstoy's Sevastopol diaries reveal, not heartache but ambition drove him at the time. Making a name as an author was just an alternative to two other grand plans - founding a new religion and creating a mathematical model for winning in cards (his losses during the siege were massive even for a rich person). — Constantine Pleshakov

Canada's eminent position today is a tribute to the patience, tolerance, and strength of character of her people, of both French and British strains. For Canada is enriched by the heritage of France as well as of Britain, and Quebec has imparted the vitality and spirit of France itself to Canada. Canada's notable achievement of national unity and progress through accommodation, moderation and forbearance can be studied with profit by her sister nations. — Harry S. Truman

Revolution was the great nightmare of eighteenth-century British society, and when first the American Revolution of 1776, then the French Revolution of 1789 overturned the accepted order, the United Kingdom exercised all its power so that revolution would not damage its own hardwon security and growing prosperity. Eighteenth-century writing is full of pride in England as the land of liberty (far ahead of France, the great rival, in political maturity), and saw a corresponding growth in national self-confidence accompanying the expansion of empire. — Ronald Carter

Contrary to what certain comedians have led you to believe, the national French pastime is picnicking. — Bob Hope

If development was measured not by gross national product, but a society's success in meeting the basic needs of its people, Vietnam would have been a model. That was its real "threat." From the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to 1972, primary and secondary school enrollment in the North increased sevenfold, from 700,000 to almost five million. In 1980, UNESCO estimated a literacy rate of 90 percent and school enrollment among the highest in Asia and throughout the Third World. — John Pilger

Nationalism is a phenomenon of the world after the 1789 French Revolution; it implies a common consciousness created within a consolidated territory, usually involving a single language and shared culture, producing a public rhetoric of a single national will, and with the agenda of creating or reinforcing a unitary state. — Diarmaid MacCulloch

To the chefs who pioneered the nouvelle cuisine in France, the ancienne cuisine they were rebelling against looked timeless, primordial, old as the hills. But the cookbook record proves that the haute cuisine codified early in this century by Escoffier barely goes back to Napoleon's time. Before that, French food is not recognizable as French to modern eyes. Europe's menu before 1700 was completely different from its menu after 1800, when national cuisines arose along with modern nations and national cultures. — Raymond Sokolov

While I'm sure people in Britain have money worries, they don't have them like the French do. The French, however much money they have, are worried. They're a very stressed people. It seems to be a very essential component of the national psyche. — Jonathan Meades

I am a believer in passing the ball on the ground, I was lucky to be part of teams like that at Arsenal, with the French national team and with Monaco and at Barcelona. I know you can win in other ways, but I believe that is the way football should be played. — Thierry Henry

The French write plays and paint as naturally as we play jazz - it's just a national gift. — Alice B. Toklas

Reticence was clearly a national characteristic, even if the other person spoke French. — Sara Sheridan

CAMILLE DESMOULINS: For the establishment of liberty and the safety of the nation, one day of anarchy will do more than ten years of National Assemblies. — Hilary Mantel

Charlie Hebdo has been sued a good dozen times by the General Alliance against Racism and for Respect of French and Christian Identity (AGRIF), an organization of Catholic fundamentalists who long maintained close ties with the National Front. — Charb

Vichy emerged not only from what divided the French but also what united them: pacifism, fear of population decline, loss of confidence in national identity, anti-Semitism, discontent with existing political institutions, ambivalence about modernity. The existence of this common — Julian T. Jackson

From the days of biplanes and silk scarves, the aviator has been the archetype of masculine glamour. Aviators have personified national ideals, from French elan to Soviet party discipline. They've inspired lust and admiration. They've turned sunglasses and short, utilitarian leather jackets into fashion statements. — Virginia Postrel

In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter. — Neville Chamberlain

Born in England during the First World War, of Belgian parents with partly German roots, I grew up in the cosmopolitan city of Antwerp, where I had the benefit of a classical education taught in the two national languages of Belgium: French and Dutch. — Christian De Duve

If we had known it would eventually involve the KGB, the French National Police, and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, we would have left that body in the river and called the Polizei like any normal German citizen; but we were Americans and addicted to solving other people's problems, so naturally, we got involved. — Rosanne Parry

Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French. — Cyril Cusack

An observation that people who live permanently in an adoptive country tend to progressively generalize the bad and particularize the good, that is, attribute the bad traits in people they encounter to the national trait of the natives, and the good things to the individual.
This holds equally well for French people living in the U.S. as it does for Americans living in France. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race. — Adolf Hitler