Quotes

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.” (Edward Whymper – Scrambles Amongst the Alps)
Va t’en chercher le bonheur et ne reviens pas les mains vides (?)

Life is too important to be taken seriously (Oscar Wilde)

Un roman est pour moi une aventure intellectuelle absolument passionnante – une sorte de défi que je me sens forcé de relever avec élégance et force (Hubert Aquin, Journal, 11 déc. 1952)

Tu es donc dans les Alpes? N’est-ce pas que c’est beau. Il n’y a que cela au monde (Alfred de Musset à George Sand)

Although some times I have felt that I held fire in my hands and spread a page with shining – I have never lost the weight of clumsiness, of ignorance, of aching dispair (John Steinbeck)

Revenons à nos moutons (Voltaire)

Love is nothing in Tennis, but in life it is everything (?)

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. (Declaration of Arbroath, 1320 – Bernard de Linton to Pope John XXII)

“We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked at each other for the last time.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 13

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” (Heraclitus)

Associate Professor of French – Modern Languages