These tweets survive from Chateaubriand’s Napoleonic period, vol. II of the New York Review of Books’ late edition. I share them not because I consider them nuggets of imperishable geezerly wisdom—he was not yet an old man—but because they fit the form and communicate in brief something of François-René’s thought and style; and they prompt, on occasion, a reflective and critical huh? and hmm. Such leisurely effort keeps me out of mischief.
An atheist’s life is a horrible lightning strike that serves only to show him the abyss.
The profits of fame are charged to the soul.
By what miracle does a man consent to do all he does on earth, he who is destined to die?
A sickening of the soul is not a permanent or natural state.
I am the one who provoked the young century to admire the old temples.
So-called admiration was no recompense for the horrors that attend a man whose name is retained by the crowd.
They pretended to have no need of God, and that is why they had need of a tyrant.
Oh, reconciled Christian, do not forget me in your prayers when I am gone.
Time rejuvenates cities—exactly the opposite of men.
Nowadays, everything is worn down—even misery.
It is not the same thing to be above crimes as to be beneath them.
Such is the danger of literature: our desire to make a splash gets the better of our generous feelings.
Oh, may the voice of friendship betrayed never be raised against our tomb!
Sorrow finally came to fill my days: it is a resource on which one can always rely.
Sorrow is my element: I am only myself when I’m unhappy.
One should show the world only what is beautiful.
What a gift from God is death!
Of the many actors of that epoch, only one remains: Bonaparte.
Man stumbles from one mistake to the next.
Our life is a perpetual blush, for it is a neverending blunder.
Given the joy I always feel whenever I am leaving palaces, it is evident I was not made to enter them.
Yes, I noticed it: a superior mind does not bring forth evil painlessly, for it is not its natural fruit, and it should not bear it.
Prudent people find that anyone who cedes to honor imprudent.
There are times when loftiness of soul is a veritable infirmity.
Exceptional men should be careful of their tears, which put them under the yoke of the vulgar.
Obscure men, what are we compared to these famous men?
Hearts have different secrets, incomprehensible to other hearts. Let us not deny anyone his suffering. Sorrows are like countries: each man has his own. [A triple tweet!]
Oh, blessed are ye who passed noiselessly through this world, not even turning your heads in passing!
Let us be mild if we wish to be mourned. Only angels weep for lofty genius and superior qualities. [Double tweet.]
I fear that the only way I will be able to leave this world is by crossing over the corpses of my dreams.
These days I offer my arm only to Time: she is very heavy!
Shine a light on the days of your life, and they will no longer be what they are.
I am a republican who serves the monarchy and a philosopher who honors religion.
Thousands of youngsters are obsessed with the idea of suicide, which they believe to be proof of their superiority.
Every one of us reaps the fruit of forgotten lives squandered so that we might live.
Heaven punishes the violation of human rights.
Women, in general, hated Bonaparte as mothers.
Man digs the grave, and God fills it.
When a man is ready to die, he is invincible.
What noble sentiments remained had withdrawn into the hearts of women.
Napoleon’s greatness was not of a kind that makes friends with calamity. Prosperity alone left him with his faculties intact. He was not fashioned for misfortune. [Another triple.]
It is not possible to subjugate a nation whose last stronghold is the North Pole.
When you have committed a reproachable act, Heaven imposes on you the sanction of witnesses.
Old Kutuzov, for his part, was disdainful of disdain.
Anyone can turn to evil, anyone can kill a people or a king; but to come back from it is difficult.
When a man clears a path to injustice, at the same time he clears a path to perdition.
Posterity is not as fair in its judgments as people tend to think.
Fear is a bad counselor, especially for those without a conscience. In adversity, as in good fortune, there is measure only in morality. [A double.]
Poets are birds: every noise makes them sing.
God, in his patient eternity, sooner or later brings justice to bear.
There are some men who have had life thrown around their neck like a chain.
There are men who are very good at ascending and very bad at descending.
Napoleon was, in one person, all things great and miserable in man.
More traitors are made by events than by opinions.
It is not enough for a great man to be born: he must die.
One is never entitled to say all is lost if he has attempted nothing.
Only the French know how to dine methodically, just as only they know how to compose a book.
And the people shouted at him. “You must die!”—as time shouts at us all.
Most men err in rating themselves too highly; I err in rating myself not highly enough.
What is dishonorable is fatal. A slap in the face does no harm to you physically, yet it kills you. [A double tweet.]
Like most despots he was on good terms with his servants, but deep down he cared for no one.
The life of Bonaparte was an incontestable truth, which imposture had taken upon itself to write.
The great men, who form a very small family on earth, unfortunately find no one to imitate but one another.
What a pity for those who have perished!
As for honor, it eludes tyranny: it is the soul of martyrdom.
Every man feels his life his own way, and he who gives the world a great spectacle is not so moved or so instructed as the spectator.
The more serious the countenance, the more beautiful the smile.
It was a long book.
In the Afterword of vol. II, Monsieur Julien Gracq remarked in passing of “that drop of bitterness essential to aging well” that is lacking in Chateaubriand’s immediate literary heirs. I hope this requisite bitterness is exclusive to the French, like dining methodically and composing books, and not universal. Bittersweet, I can do, but not pure bitter.
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