“...For that matter, men are perhaps indifferent to power.... What fascinates them in this idea, you see, is not real power, it's the illusion of being able to do exactly as they please. The king's power is the power to govern, isn't it? But man has no urge to govern--he has an urge to compel, as you said. To be more than a man, in a world of men. To escape man's fate, I was saying. Not powerful--all-powerful. The visionary disease, of which the will to power is only the intellectual justification, is the will to god-head--every man dreams of being god.”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“ان لكل انسان نوع من الألم يلائم طبيعته”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“كل ألم لا يساعد أحدا ألم لا معنى له”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“- [...] Ah ! pourquoi l'intelligence des femmes veut-elle toujours choisir un autre objet que le sien ?
- Quel est le sien, cher ?
- Le charme et la compréhension, de toute évidence.
Elle réfléchit.
- Ce que les hommes appellent ainsi, c'est la soumission de l'esprit. Vous ne reconnaissez chez une femme que l'intelligence qui vous approuve.”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“- Qu'entendez-vous par : l'intelligence ?
- En général ?
- Oui.
Ferral réfléchit.
- La possession des moyens de contraindre les choses ou les hommes.
Gisors sourit imperceptiblement. Chaque fois qu'il posait cette question, son interlocuteur, quel qu'il fût, répondait par le portrait de son désir, ou par l'image qu'il se faisait de lui-même.”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“- [...] Ne trouvez-vous pas d'une stupidité caractéristique de l'espèce humaine qu'un homme qui n'a qu'une vie puisse la perdre pour une idée ?
- Il est très rare qu'un homme puisse supporter, comment dirais-je ? sa condition d'homme...”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“D'ailleurs, les hommes sont peut-être indifférents au pouvoir... Ce qui les fascine dans cette idée, voyez-vous, ce n'est pas le pouvoir réel, c'est l'illusion du bon plaisir. Le pouvoir du roi, c'est de gouverner, n'est-ce pas ? Mais l'homme n'a pas envie de gouverner : il a envie de contraindre, vous l'avez dit. D'être plus qu'un homme dans un monde d'hommes. Échapper à la condition humaine, vous disais-je. Non pas puissant : tout-puissant. La maladie chimérique, dont la volonté de puissance n'est que la justification intellectuelle, c'est la volonté de déité : tout homme rêve d'être dieu.”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“The implication is that the people of God were lost and that God had to do something—as he had always done—to intervene and set them back on the right track. But there was a difference this time. This was the last time. This was the last chance.”
― Lee Strobel, quote from The Case for Christ
“Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, quote from The Moon and Sixpence
“Self pity, Orito reminds herself yet again, is a noose dangling from a rafter.”
― David Mitchell, quote from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
“To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger.”
― Robert Greene, quote from The 48 Laws of Power
“My guess is that the Jonathan would be as out of place in England or Kazakhstan, the native ground of its ancestors, as I would be in Russia, the native ground of my own. The arrow of natural history won’t be reversed: by now the Jonathan’s as much an American as I am.”
― Michael Pollan, quote from The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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