"This I did not dare to say, but there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean Hitler, I mean there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason..."

"[Responding to criticism as to how he ended his Literary Review article] Perhaps I shouldn't have said that, but it came from my wartime experience [in the RAF], we saw almost none of them in the armed forces then. I mean if you and I were in a line moving towards what we knew were gas chambers I’d rather have a go at taking one of the guards with me; but they were always submissive."

"[M]akes one wonder in the end what sort of people these Israelis are. It is like the good old Hitler and Himmler times all over again."

"[Closing comments] Now is the time for the Jews of the world to follow the example of the Germans and become anti-Israeli. But do they have the conscience? And do they, I wonder, have the guts?"

"Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched rapidly from being much pitied victims to barbarous murderers. Never before has a race of people generated so much sympathy around the world and then, in the space of a lifetime, succeeded in turning that sympathy into hatred and revulsion."

"Must Israel, like Germany, be brought to her knees before she learns how to behave in this world?"

"For her, this was always a blissful time of day. She knew he didn't want to speak much until the first drink was finished, and she, on her side, was content to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house. She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel-almost as a sunbather feels the sun-that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together. She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved the intent, far look in his eyes when they rested in her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whiskey had taken some of it away."

"The matter with human beans," the BFG went on, "is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles."

"De la peau du lion l'âne s'étant vêtu, Était craint partout à la ronde."

"Il ne faut jamais Vendre la peau de l'ours qu'on ne l'ait mis par terre."

"Il n'est rien d'inutile aux personnes de sens."

"Bref, la fortune a toujours tort."

"... ’argent vient-il comme il s’en va ? Je n’y touchois jamais. Dites-moy donc de grace, Reprit l’autre, pourquoy vous vous affligez tant, Puiſque vous ne touchiez jamais à cet argent : Mettez une pierre à la place, Elle vous vaudra tout autant."

"Amour est un étrange maître! Heureux qui peut ne le connaître Que par récit, lui ni ses coups!"

"En toute chose il faut considérer la fin."

"[On] est bien fou de cerveau Qui prétend contenter tout le monde et son père."

"C'est double plaisir de tromper le trompeur."

"Patience et longueur de temps Font plus que force ni que rage."

"Il faut, autant qu'on peut, obliger tout le monde: On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi."

"Les délicats sont malheureux: Rien ne saurait les satisfaire."

"Je plie, et ne romps pas."

"A l'oeuvre on connaît l'artisan."

"Plutôt souffrir que mourir, C'est la devise des hommes."

"La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure."

"People must help one another; it is nature's law."

"Nous n'écoutons d'instincts que ceux qui sont les nôtres, Et ne croyons le mal que quand il est venu."

"Apprenez que tout flatteur Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute."

"La fourmi n'est pas prêteuse; C'est là son moindre défaut."

"Je vais t'entretenir de moindres aventures, Te tracer en ces vers de légères peintures; Et si de t'agréer je n'emporte le prix, J'aurai du moins d'honneur de l'avoir entrepris."

"L'histoire, encore que mensongère, Contient des vérités qui servent de leçons. Tout parle en mon ouvrage, et même les poissons. Ce qu'ils disent s'adresse à tout tant que nous sommes; Je me sers d'animaux pour instruire les hommes."

"We then saw what St. Jerome said of those who serve God and those who serve the world: "Each to the other we seem insane": Invicem insanire videmur. There is a never-ending duel between the two."

"To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism — this is the art of living."

"Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing."

"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire."

"But there is more than detachment in La Fontaine. His attitude to life, being a mature one, is therefore complex: a rich blend of sympathy, tenderness and irony. Even his detachment has subtle shades and a phlegmatic grace which is particular to him."

"The Fables belong to comedy; the pure comic vision, different in that respect from that noble hybrid, satire, requires that the reader should appreciate it intellectually without being emotionally involved. In La Fontaine, as in Molière, the detachment of the comic vision prevents the tragic element from making its impact on the reader directly, although the upsetting implications are there. The device of using animals as protagonists makes it easier to assume this attitude of detachment: while we watch the adventures of the animal, although they are our own adventures, we benefit from our ordinary feeling of superiority over the animals; and this feeling of being superior and of being different, which we automatically have, helps us to watch the tragedy of the world from the point of view of the gods."

"There is no trace of bitterness in his poetry; one would almost say, there is no indignation before the evils of the world. Of course there is a reaction of indignation in the mind of the reader. La Fontaine knows very well that the reader will be on the side of the lamb against the wolf: there is no need for him to express his own indignation and he never does. In this he differs from those moralists who wrote—and at times magnificently—what one could call ‘la littérature de l’indignation’; in the works of the English moralists, Pope and Swift, and of La Bruyère also, we can perceive the controlled reactions of their wounded sensibility, their revolt against unfairness and cruelty and a burning hankering after some sort of justice. La Fontaine's attitude is that of detachment."

"We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all."

""They are too green", he said, "and only good for fools"."

"No path of flowers leads to glory."

"Ventre affamé n'a point d'oreilles."

"Il connaît l’univers, et ne se connaît pas."

"L'homme est ainsi bâti: Quand un sujet l'enflamme L'impossibilité disparaît à son âme."

"Les gens sans bruit sont dangereux."

"Laissez dire les sots: le savoir a son prix."

"On rencontre sa destinée Souvent par des chemins qu’on prend pour l’éviter."

"Rien n'est si dangereux qu'un ignorant ami; Mieux vaudrait un sage ennemi."

"Rien ne pèse tant qu'un secret."

"La mort ne surprend point le sage: Il est toujours prêt à partir."

"Plus fait douceur que violence."