Quotes from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

Stefan Zweig ·  496 pages

Rating: (3K votes)


“Lightly, caressingly, Marie Antoinette picked up the crown as a gift. She was still too young to know that life never gives anything for nothing, and that a price is always exacted for what fate bestows. She did not think she would have to pay a price. She simply accepted the rights of her royal position and performed no duties in exchange. She wanted to combine two things which are, in actual human experience, incompatible; she wanted to reign and at the same time to enjoy.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“Lightly, caressingly, Marie Antoinette picked up the crown as a gift. She was still too young to know that life never gives anything for nothing, and that a price is always exacted for what fate bestows. She did not think she would have to pay a price.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“Not one of the European rulers would put himself about in the attempt to save Marie Antoinette, so that Mercy scornfully declared: “They would not have tried to save her even if they had with their own eyes seen her mounting the steps to the guillotine.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“The woman who had been born in an imperial palace, and then, as Queen of France, had had hundreds of rooms in her dwelling house, was now imprisoned in a tiny basement cell, its walls streaming with damp, and its grated window half occluded.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“The desire to ascend in the social scale does not make itself felt until the intellect awakens. Up to the tenth, and often up to the fifteenth year, almost every child belonging to a well-to-do family envies its proletarian schoolmates, to whom so many things are permissible which for the “respectable” are placed under taboo.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman



“She did what is the most dangerous thing anyone can do in politics; she discoursed without having the most remote acquaintance with the subject; she amateurishly thrust her fingers into every pie, interfering in matters of the utmost moment; she used her overwhelming influence with the King exclusively on behalf of her favorites.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“But this first installation was by no means the last. Every year the Queen had some new fancy for beautifying her miniature kingdom with more highly artificial and more “natural” additions and alterations.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“Persistently trying to hoodwink one another, the Emperor, the kings, the princes, and the revolutionaries created an atmosphere of general distrust (like that which poisons the world today); and, in the end, though they had not directly purposed anything of the kind, they involved twenty-five million men in the cataract or a war which lasted for twenty-five years.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“she was never to be allowed to exchange a word with him; and that she was forbidden to pay him a visit even when he was ailing. He was quarantined from her as if she had been suffering from the plague. She was actually forbidden to converse with Simon the shoemaker, the boy’s tutor, from whom she might have gleaned a little information about her son. His seclusion from her was to be unconditional and absolute.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“el derecho impone también deberes y que el amor más puro acaba por fatigarse si no se siente correspondido.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman



“по наследство се предава единствено кралската корона, но не и свързаните с нея могъщество и величие.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“Pero el tiempo es un aliado oportunista a incierto; se colocó siempre en el bando de los fuertes y deja despreciativamente en el atolladero al que confía en él sin moverse,”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“were uproariously demanding relief from their intolerable miseries — in this Potemkin sideshow there prevailed a preposterous and mendacious comfort.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“Tutto a te mi guida - Totul ma duce spre tine - cuvinte mai adevarate ca oricand, in acele zile cand Maria Antoaneta se afla la un pas de moarte. Fersen stia ca inima ei a batut pentru dansul pana in ultima clipa. Cu cele cinci cuvinte - ultim salut de despartire in pragul vesniciei, dar si juramant al dragostei statornice in curgerea vremelniciei pamantene - s-a incheiat aceasta incomparabila tragedie in umbra ghilotinei.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman


“Come talvolta un artista, per dar prova delle proprie energie creative, cerca di proposito un soggetto esteriormente modesto invece di uno patetico e universale, così di tanto in tanto il destino cerca un eroe insignificante per dimostrare come anche da una materia scadente possa svilupparsi la più alta tensione, da un’anima debole e mal disposta una grandiosa tragedia.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman



About the author

Stefan Zweig
Born place: in Vienna, Austria
Born date November 28, 1881
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Since that time, I've had many similar moments, and I can never hear the words "family" and "home" without feeling that they sound strange, never simply hear them and let them go. When I stop to examine them, though, the words seem hollow, seem to rattle at my feet like empty cans.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas


“He stood looking down at her for a moment, then walked to the window and raised it. "Let's let the storm in," he said, and then it was with them, filling the half-dark room with sound and vibration. The rain-chilled air washed over her, cool and fresh on her heated skin. She sighed, the small sound drowned out by the din of thunder and rain.
There by the window, with the dim grey light outlining the bulge and plane of powerful muscle, Wolf removed his wet clothing.”
― Linda Howard, quote from Mackenzie's Mountain


“Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job... And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another... Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from High Tide in Tucson


“Eve: "Was that like a cookie?"

Roarke: "Hmmm?"

Eve: "You know, have a cookie. You'll feel better. Were you making me feel better?"

Roarke: "I certainly hope so, it worked for me. I wanted you. I always do."

Eve: "It's funny how men can wake up with their brains in their cocks."

Roarke: "It makes us what we are. Let's take a shower. I'll give you another cookie.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Ceremony in Death


“Visually Agincourt is a pre-Raphaelite, perhaps better a Medici Gallery print battle - a composition of strong verticals and horizontals and a conflict of rich dark reds and Lincoln greens against fishscale greys and arctic blues.”
― John Keegan, quote from The Face Of Battle: A Study Of Agincourt, Waterloo And The Somme


Interesting books

Inescapable
(30.4K)
Inescapable
by Amy A. Bartol
Crossroads
(2.6K)
Crossroads
by Mary Ting
Consequences
(37.1K)
Consequences
by Aleatha Romig
Naruto, Vol. 01: The Tests of the Ninja
(114.1K)
Naruto, Vol. 01: The...
by Masashi Kishimoto
Sloppy Firsts
(33.6K)
Sloppy Firsts
by Megan McCafferty
Scarlett
(43.5K)
Scarlett
by Alexandra Ripley

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.