People From Paris

"Ce n'est pas un événement, c'est une nouvelle."

"A diplomat who says "yes" means "maybe", a diplomat who says "maybe" means "no", and a diplomat who says "no" is no diplomat."

"Each year his mighty armies marched forth in gallant show, Their enemies were targets, their bullets they were tow."

"Gaily! gaily! close our ranks! Arm! Advance! Hope of France! Gaily! gaily! close our ranks! Onward! Onward! Gauls and Franks!"

"Ce n'est que lorsqu'il expira Que le peuple, qui l'enterra, pleura."

"Quoique leurs chapeaux sont bien laids, Goddam! j'aime les anglais."

"Adieu! 'tis love's last greeting, The parting hour is come! And fast thy soul is fleeting To seek its starry home."

"Old age doth in sharp pains abound; We are belabored by the gout, Our blindness is a dark profound, Our deafness each one laughs about. Then reason's light with falling ray Doth but a trembling flicker cast. Honor to age, ye children pay! Alas! my fifty years are past!"

"Ye Gods! but she is wondrous fair! For me her constant flame appears; The garland she hath culled, I wear On brows bald since my thirty years. Ye veils that deck my loved one rare, Fall, for the crowning triumph's nigh. Ye Gods! but she is wondrous fair! And I, so plain a man am I!"

"In Paris a queer little man you may see, A little man all in gray; Rosy and round as an apple is he, Content with the present whate'er it may be, While from care and from cash he is equally free, And merry both night and day! "Ma foi! I laugh at the world." says he, "I laugh at the world, and the world laughs at me!" What a gay little man in gray."

"Nos amis, les ennemis."

"En anéantissant les désirs, on anéantit l'âme, & tout homme sans passion n'a en lui ni principe d'action, ni motif pour se mouvoir."

"To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain."

"…there are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue, which men in general have for riches and honours."

"Most events spring from causes equally small: we are unacquainted with them because most historians have been themselves ignorant of them, or have not had eyes capable of perceiving them. It is true, that, in this respect, the mind may repair their omissions; for the knowledge of certain principles easily compensates the lack of knowledge of certain facts."

"The degree of genius necessary to please us is pretty nearly the same proportion that we ourselves have."

"All men have an equal disposition for understanding."

"No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment."

"Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country."

"Those who, as representatives of the people, received, in trust for the people, the oath of the 20th of December, 1848, those, especially who, being twice invested with the confidence of the nation, had as representatives heard that oath sworn, and as legislators had seen it violated, had assumed, with their writ of summons, two duties. The first of these was, on the day when that oath should be violated, to rise in their places, to present their breasts to the enemy, without calculating either his numbers or his strength, to shelter with their bodies the sovereignty of the people and as a means to combat and cast down the usurper, to grasp every sort of weapon, from the law found in the code, to the paving stone that one picks up in the street. The second duty was, after having accepted the combat and all its chances to accept proscription and all its miseries, to stand eternally erect before the traitor, his oath in their hands, to forget their personal sufferings, their private sorrows, their families dispersed and maltreated, their fortunes destroyed, their affections crushed, their bleeding hearts; to forget themselves, and to feel thenceforth but a single wound — the wound of France to cry aloud for justice; never to suffer themselves to be appeased, never to relent, but to be implacable; to seize the despicable perjurer, crowned though he were, if not with the hand of the law, at least with the pincers of truth, and to heat red-hot in the fire of history all the letters of his oath, and brand them on his face. He who writes these lines is one of those who did not shrink, on the 2nd of December, from the utmost effort to accomplish the first of these two great duties; in publishing this book he performs the second."

"In less than three years after this memorable day, on the 2nd of December, 1851, at daybreak, there might be read on all the street corners in Paris, this placard:— "In the name of the French people, the President of the Republic: "Decrees — "Article 1. The National Assembly is dissolved. "Article 2. Universal suffrage is re-established. The law of the 31st of May is repealed. "Article 3. The French people are convoked in their comitia. "Article 4. A state of siege is decreed throughout the first military division. "Article 5. The Council of State is dissolved. "Article 6. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of this decree. "Done at the Palace of the Élysée, December 2, 1851."

"I never admired the character of the first Napoleon; but I recognize his great genius. His work, too, has left its impress for good on the face of Europe. The third Napoleon could have no claim to having done a good or just act."

"For decades aluminium was much more expensive than gold. In the 1860s, Emperor Napoleon III of France commissioned aluminium cutlery to be laid out for his most distinguished guests. Less important visitors had to make do with the gold knives and forks."

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historical facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

"I recognize the principle of the fight against the revolution as my own, but I do not believe it right to depict Louis Napoleon as the sole or just κατ’ ἐξοχήν representative of the revolution ... how many existences are there in the current political world that are not rooted in revolutionary soil? Take Spain, Portugal, Brazil, all American republics, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden, the England that is still footed in the consciousness of the 'glorious revolution' of 1866 ... Bonapartism is not the father of the revolution."

"Etiez-vous à Sedan?"

"Usually, it is man who attacks; as for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate."

"Like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones."

"You ask me whether they are attached to the present government: they are sincerely grateful to it for having restored order—I saw to-day at Arles on the Roman obelisk an inscription to Louis Napoleon with the simple words—"il nous a sauvés de l'Anarchie"—which you may depend upon it expresses the sincere feeling of the industrious classes. But above all, the French peasant (who feeds the army and is the real power of France) sticks to this man and is disposed to maintain him because he is the symbol, after all, of that final breach with the past and with a feudal aristocracy by means of which the peasant has become a person[n]age and which he is firmly resolved shall never be filled up."

"After having read the French Speech from the Throne, in which it was seen that the Emperor Napoleon was lowering the flag for the great republic of the United States of North America, on the Mexican question."

"In politics evils should be remedied not revenged."

"All eyes were turned towards this man. A pallid face, its bony emaciated angles thrown into bold relief by the shaded lamps, a nose large and long, moustaches, a curled lock of hair above a narrow forehead, eyes small and dull, and with a timid and uneasy manner, bearing no resemblance to the Emperor, — this man was Citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. During the murmurs which greeted his entrance, he remained for some instants, his right hand in the breast of his buttoned coat, erect and motionless on the tribune, the pediment of which bore these dates: February 22, 23, 24; and above which were inscribed these three words: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."

"The President, functionary and servant, swore fidelity to the sovereign people. Bending before the national majesty, manifest in the omnipotent Assembly, he received from the Assembly the Constitution, and swore obedience to it. The representatives were inviolable, and he was not. We repeat it: a citizen responsible to all the citizens, he was, of the whole nation, the only man so bound. Hence, in this oath, sole and supreme, there was a solemnity which went to the heart. He who writes these lines was present in his place in the Assembly, on the day this oath was taken; he is one of those who, in the face of the civilized world called to bear witness, received this oath in the name of the people, and who have it still in their hands. Thus it runs: — "In presence of God, and before the French people, represented by the National Assembly, I swear to remain faithful to the democratic republic, one and indivisible, and to fulfil all the duties imposed upon me by the Constitution." The President of the Assembly, standing, read this majestic formula; then, before the whole Assembly, breathlessly silent and attentive, intensely expectant, Citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, raising his right hand, said, in a firm, loud voice: "I swear it!""

"I think there are three qualities that people believe are weaknesses, but which I believe are strengths, particularly for a filmmaker: paranoia, megalomania and mental contagion."

"If there is a designer whose name is synonymous with industrial design it is Raymond Loewy (1893-1986)."

"What Charles and Ray Eames are to furniture design, Raymond Loewy is to industrial design -- the modern master"

"I never expected that one could fall so completely in love with a nation and a people. I already knew that very soon I would thrill at everything American, love everything American, perhaps blindly, but fervently and forever. I still remember how thrilled I was at the sight of the flag. After all these years, every time I see the Stars and Stripes in the breeze, I get the same emotional feeling. Aesthetically speaking, it is perfect. One of the outstanding "designs" of all times. It may be that a nation gets the flag it deserves."

"Design is too important to be left to designers."

"This book is the story of a young man who came to America to make a living, and simply happened to do so in a profession which he helped to create."

"Industrial design keeps the customer happy, his client in the black and the designer busy."

"A lot of people are open to new things, as long as they look like the old ones."

"Is it responsible to camouflage one of America's most remarkable machines as a piece of gaudy merchandise? Form, which should be the clean- cut expression of mechanical excellence has become sensuous and organic."

"I believe one should design for the advantage of the largest mass of people, first and always. That takes care of ideologies and sociologies."

"Si jeunesse savoit; si viellesse pouvoit."

"The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means."

"Rather than the obsession with impurity, you'd do better to fear the nostalgia for purity."

"I can now see to the bottom of my own depths, there is nothing stopping my gaze, no obstacle is in the way. And there is nothing there."

"[T]he cradle is shallower than the grave."

"A man given to vice is always an idealist."

"They are always talking about the fire of hell, but no one has ever seen it, my friends. For hell is cold. It used to be that the nights weren't long enough to wear out your malice, and you got up each morning with your breasts still full of poison. But now the devil himself has withdrawn from you. Ah, how alone we are in evil, my brothers! The poor human race dreams from century to century of breaking that solitude — but it's no use! The devil, who can do so many things, will never succeed in founding a Church, a Church that will put in common both the merits of hell and the sin of all. From now until the end of the world, the sinner will have to sin alone, always alone — for just as we die alone, so also do we sin alone. The devil, you see, is the friend who never stays with us to the end."