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

“It hurts too much so I don't want to talk about it.”
― Alex Flinn, quote from Beastly


“Hours of crisis often call for sacrifice. In matters of consequence, when have doubt and fear given the best advice? Why not heed faith, courage, and honor?”
― Brandon Mull, quote from Fablehaven


“You better hide that heart of yours, Lady Titanos. It won't lead you anywhere you want to go.”
― Victoria Aveyard, quote from Red Queen


“He'd half meant to speak but those eyes had altered the world forever in the space of a heartbeat.”
― Cormac McCarthy, quote from All the Pretty Horses


“they often told others, they were too busy laughing together to have any time to argue.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Guardian


Interesting books

For the Time Being
(3.1K)
For the Time Being
by Annie Dillard
Dark Journey
(6.5K)
Dark Journey
by Elaine Cunningham
London is the Best City in America
(2.4K)
London is the Best C...
by Laura Dave
Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing
(2.1K)
Beauty for Ashes: Re...
by Joyce Meyer
The Hidden Hand
(1.2K)
The Hidden Hand
by E.D.E.N. Southworth
The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
(6.7K)
The Anatomy of Peace...
by The Arbinger Institute

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.