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Quotes About Paris

1776: A declaration of the Parlement of Paris: The first rule of justice is to conserve for each individual that which belongs to him. This is a fundamental rule of natural law, human rights and civil government; a rule which consists not only in maintaining the rights of property, but also those rights vested in the individual and derived from prerogatives of birth and social position.
~ Hilary Mantel
A pottery outside Paris was turning out his picture on thick glazed crockery in a strident yellow and blue. This is what happens when you become a public figure; people eat their dinners off you.
~ Hilary Mantel
So where are you living now?' Danton inquired. 'On the rue Saintonge in the Marais.' 'Comfortable?' Robespierre didn't reply. He couldn't think what Danton's standard of comfort might be, so anything he said wouldn't mean much. Scruples like this were always tripping him up, in the simplest conversations
~ Hilary Mantel
Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.
~ Unknown
Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?
~ Honore de Balzac
Mais Paris est un véritable océan. Jetez-y la sonde, vous n'en connaîtrez jamais la profondeur. Parcourez-le, décrivez-le : quelque soin que vous mettiez à le parcourir, à le décrire ; quelques nombreux et intéressés que soient les explorateurs de cette mer, il s'y rencontrera toujours un lieu vierge, un antre inconnu, des fleurs, des perles, des monstres, quelque chose d'inouï, oublié par les plongeurs littéraires.
~ Honore de Balzac
Paris that eternal monstrous marvel … the city of a hundred-thousand novels … a living creature, the great courtesan whose face and heart and mind-boggling morals they know: "They" are the lovers of Paris.
~ Honore de Balzac
In Paris, when certain people see you ready to set your foot in the stirrup, some pull your coat-tails, others loosen the buckle of the strap that you may fall and crack your skull; one wrenches off your horse's shoes, another steals your whip, and the least treacherous of them all is the man whom you see coming to fire his pistol at you point blank.
~ Honore de Balzac
Retrouver Paris! savez-vous ce que c'est, ô Parisiens?
~ Honore de Balzac
Will anyone understand it outside Paris? That is open to doubt. The special features of this scene, full of local colour and observations, can only be appreciated in the area lying between the heights of Montmartre and the hills of Montrouge, in that illustrious valley of flaking plasterwork and gutters black with mud; a valley full of suffering that is real, and of joy that is often false, where life is so hectic that it takes something quite extraordinary to produce feelings that last.
~ Honore de Balzac
In Paris extremes are made to meet by passion. Vice is constantly binding the rich to the poor, the great to the mean.
~ Honore de Balzac
Give a Paris woman at bay four-and-twenty hours, and she will overthrow a ministry.
~ Honore de Balzac
Live here, in Paris," resumed the First Consul, addressing Bartolomeo; "we will know nothing of this affair. I will cause your property in Corsica to be bought, to give you enough to live on for the present. Later, before long, we will think of you. But, remember, no more vendetta! There are no woods here to fly to. If you play with daggers, you must expect no mercy. Here, the law protects all citizens; and no one is allowed to do justice for himself.
~ Honore de Balzac
I should immensely like to know what is the potent charm wielded by society to keep people prisoner from nine every evening till two or three in the morning, and force them to be so lavish alike of strength and money. When I longed for it, I had no idea of the separations it brought about, or its overmastering spell. But, then, I forget, it is Paris which does it all.
~ Honore de Balzac
Every reputation founded upon the fashion or the fancy of the hour, or upon the short-lived follies of Paris, produces its Pons. No place in the world is so inexorable in great things; no city of the globe so disdainfully indulgent in small.
~ Honore de Balzac
My sweet, it is this terrible Paris — there's my excuse. What, pray, is yours? Oh! what a whirlpool is society! Didn't I tell you once that in Paris one must be as the Parisians? Society there drives out all sentiment; it lays en embargo on your time; and unless you are very careful, soon eats away your heart altogether.
~ Honore de Balzac
Paris hints of sacrifice. But here we deal with that large dusty facet known to indulgent and congruous kind. It is in its capacity of delicious inn and majestic Baedeker where western Venuses twang its responsive streets, and hush to soft growl before its statues, that it is seen.
~ Unknown
her first day in Paris she can hardly get out of bed. When finally she does, she stands at the window and watches the cats. She does not feel depressed so much as absent. She
~ Unknown
There's one thing I wish to get straight about this flight. They call me "Lucky," but luck isn't enough. As a matter of fact, I had what I regarded and still regard as the best existing plane to make the flight from New York to Paris. I had what I regard as the best engine, and I was equipped with what were in the circumstances the best possible instruments for making such efforts. I hope I made good use of what I had.
~ Unknown
If they took Paris, what would become of us? It was ghastly to sit there in camp, helpless, imprisoned, unable to take any step against the disaster that was drawing nearer or even to get any definite information about it.
~ Lion Feuchtwanger
I travel a lot, but I'd love to go back to cities such as Paris, Las Vegas, New York, and London with my family. When I'm there touring with the band, I have to work, and it's no fun at all.
~ Arnel Pineda
I had quite a few jobs in Paris before hitting the jackpot and writing cookbooks. One of them was peeling vegetables and prepping other veggie delights at Bob's Juice Bar.
~ Rachel Khoo
Still teenagers, Harry and Peter Brant II have never disappointed when I've seen them out and about in New York, Paris, and Venice (Which is where all schoolkids go on field trips, right?) They're not afraid of wearing brooches, capes, embroidery, and even a dab-bing of makeup.
~ Derek Blasberg
When I went to Europe for the first time, I went to Paris and then to Venice. So after Paris, Venice was my first great European city, and it just blew me away.
~ James Ivory