Jean Giraudoux Quotes

All women are born evil. Some just realize their potential later in life than others.

Everyone, when there’s war in the air, learns to live in a new element: falsehood.

To seek out in a world full of joy the one thing that is certain to give you pain, and hug it to your bosom with all your strength; that’s the greatest human happiness.

I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage – unless you have an agent and pay him a commission. Nothing is free anymore to sell itself or give itself away. These days, Countess, every cabbage has its pimp.

When he (man) ceased any longer to heed the words of the seers and prophets, science lovingly brought forth the radio.

Death is the next step after the pension-it’s perpetual retirement without pay.

A faithful woman looks to the spring, a good book, perfume, earthquakes, and divine revelation for the experience others find in a lover. They deceive their husbands, so to speak, with the entire world, men excepted.

A golf course is the epitome of all that is purely transitory in the universe, a space not to dwell in, but to get over as quickly as possible.

To make ourselves invisible to creditors or to the envious, and even to our own worries, we can take advantage here on earth of a great democratic institution-in fact, democracy’s only success-the night.

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

In times of death and famine, reason is on the side of the priests-who have their own kind of logic which cries for miracles and, on occasion, invents them.

Only the mediocre die always at their best. Real leaders are always improving – and raising their bar on how superbly they can perform and how quickly they can move.