Quotes from Maurice Druon

Italian is the language of song. German is good for philosophy and English for poetry. French is best at precision; it has a rigour to it.

Anarchy is as detestable in grammar as it is in society.

Every man believes to some extent that the world began when he was born and, at the moment of leaving it, suffers at having to let the Universe remain unfinished.

Every unjust act, even committed for the sake of a just cause, carries its curse with it.

It must be admitted that such things were common coin of the period. Kingdoms were often handed over to adolescents, whose absolute power fasinated them as might a game. Hardly grown out of the age in which it is fun to tear the wings from flies, they might now amuse themselves by tearing the heads from men. Too young to fear or even imagine death, they would not hesitate to distribute it around them.

Mediocrities can tolerate being surrounded only by flatterers who conceal their mediocrity.

It is thus that imagination can in the end determine destiny, and it but needs our future actions to be given shape in speech so that we are obliged to give them the reality of accomplishment.

First love is the only pure and happy one. If it goes wrong, nothing can replace it. Later loves can never attain to the same limpid perfection; though they may be as solid, as marble, they are streaked with veins of another colour, the dried blood of the past.

Il y a dans l'Histoire une singulière lignée, toujours renouvelée, de fanatiques de l'ordre. Voués à une idole abstraite et absolue, pour eux les vie humaines ne sont d'aucune valeur si elles attentent au dogme des institutions; et l'on dirait qu'ils ont oublié que la collectivité qu'ils servent est composée d'hommes. (partie 2, chapitre 9)

Days lived, whether full or empty, whether busy or serene, are but days gone by, and the ashes of the past weigh the same in every hand.

The Queen watched the drops of sweat pearling her husband's brow. And nothing disgusts a woman more than the sweat of the man she has ceased to love.

Accursed! Accursed! You shall be accursed to the thirteenth generation!

The people are always prepared to shout on the side of power and to make a noise when it costs them nothing

There is a singular strand running through history, always renewing itself, that of fanatics for the general good and for the written law. Logical to the point of inhumanity, pitiless towards others as towards themselves, these servants of abstract gods and of absolute law accept the role of executioners, because they wish to be the last executioner. They deceive themselves because, once dead, the world no longer obeys them.

Tuvisteis buena travesía? —Execrable, señora, horrorosa —respondió Roberto—. Una tempestad como para echar tripas y alma. Creí llegada mi última hora, hasta el extremo de que decidí confesar mis pecados a Dios. Por fortuna, eran tantos, que al tiempo de decir la mitad ya llegábamos a destino. Guardo suficientes para el regreso.

When one has governed men for a long time, when one has thought that one has acted for the best, when one knows the pains the task has entailed, and then suddenly sees that one has never been either loved or understood, but merely submitted to, then one is overwhelmed with bitterness, and wonders whether one could not have found some better way of spending one's life.

Sony-ils tous (...) criminels s'ils en avaient l'occasion, innocents seulement par impuisance, et prets a se servir du mal pour accomplir leur ambition? (...) La nature humaine est-elle si detestable, ou bien est-ce la royaute qui nous rend ainsi?

Even when we are punished for the wrong reasons, there is always a real cause for our punishment. Every unjust act, even committed for the sake of a just cause, carries its curse with it.

The curse did not come from God. It emanated from himself and had no other source but in his own actions; and this was true of every man and of every punishment.

For in truth the years have little effect on our nature and age does not free us of our faults. We lose our hair more quickly than our weaknesses.

But nations never die of the death of a man, however great he may have been; their birth and their death derive from other causes.

The hand of God strikes swiftly, particularly when assisted by the hand of man.

One has nothing to lose by defending one's rights, even if one knows one cannot succeed. But the future is long and lies in God's hands.

Chaque homme, parce qu'il croit un peu que le monde est né en même temps que lui, souffre, au moment de quitter la vie, de laisser l'univers inachevé.