Sais Quotes
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L'univers?je l'en estime plus depuis que je sais qu'il ressemble a' une montre; il est surprenant que l'ordre de la nature, tout admirable qu'il est, ne roule que sur des choses si simples. I have come to esteem the universe more now that I know it resembles a watch; it is surprising that the order of nature, as admirable as it is, only runs on such simple things.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle— 1686 Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes.
It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home.
— 1930 In the NewYorker, 2 Aug.
Ah, ma foi! Je n'en sais rien. Moi je suis mon ancêtre.
— Translated: Ah, my faith! I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.
— When needled about his lack of noble ancestry, recounted in Sydney Smith, Saba Holland, A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith (1855), p. 245. Compare: "Curtius Rufus seems to me to be descended from himself", Tacitus recounting a saying of Tiberius, Annals, book xi. c. xxi. 16.; "To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker’s son] for his mean birth, 'My nobility,' said he, 'begins in me, but yours ends in you'", Plutarch Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders, Iphicrates (rejected by some critics as not a genuine work of Plutarch).
Rents once sais, thirs nothin like a darker skin tone tae increase the vigilance ay the police n the magistrates: too right.
Irvine Welsh— Spud, "Kicking Again: Na Na and Other Nazis" (Chapter 3, Story 2)
Moi qui sais des lais pour les reines Les complaintes de mes années Des hymnes d'esclave aux murènes La romance du mal-aimé Et des chansons pour les sirènes
guillaume apollinaire— I've made a song for the poorly loved
And songs for everything I grieved –
For unaccompanied slave and shark,
For queens who've gone into the dark."La Chanson du Mal-Aimé" (Song of the Poorly Loved), line 91; translation by William Meredith, from Francis Steegmuller Apollinaire: Poet Among the Painters (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) p. 97.
Me voici devant tous un homme plein de sens Connaissant la vie et de la mort ce qu'un vivant peut connaître Ayant éprouvé les douleurs et les joies de l'amour Ayant su quelquefois imposer ses idées Connaissant plusieurs langages Ayant pas mal voyagé Ayant vu la guerre dans l'Artillerie et l'lnfanterie Blessé à la tête trépané sous le chloroforme Ayant perdu ses meilleurs amis dans l'effroyable lutte Je sais d'ancien et de nouveau autant qu'un homme seul pourrait des deux savoir
guillaume apollinaire— You see before you a man in his right mind
Worldly-wise and with access to death
Having tested the sorrow of love and its ecstasies
Having sometimes even astonished the professors
Good with languages
Having travelled a great deal
Having seen battle in the Artillery and the Infantry
Wounded in the head trepanned under chloroform
Having lost my best friends in the butchery
As much of antiquity and modernity as can be known I know"La jolie rousse" (The Pretty Redhead), line 1; p. 133.
There is something great and terrible about suicide.
Il existe je ne sais quoi de grand et d'épouvantable dans le suicide.
Le calme et le silence nécessaires au savant ont je ne sais quoi de doux, d'enivrant comme l'amour. L'exercice de la pensée, la recherche des idées, les contemplations tranquilles de la science nous prodiguent d'ineffables délices, indescriptibles comme tout ce qui participe de l'intelligence, dont les phénomènes sont invisibles à nos sens extérieurs.
honoré de balzac— The tranquility and peace that a scholar needs is something as sweet and exhilarating as love. Unspeakable joys are showered on us by the exertion of our mental faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil contemplation of knowledge; delights indescribable, because purely intellectual and impalpable to our senses.
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.
Albert Camus— Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.
— First sentences of the book; some translations retain the original Maman.
La vie est hérissée de ces épines, et je n'y sais d'autre remède que de cultiver son jardin.
voltaire— Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.Letter to Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain (21 October 1769), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1882], vol. XIV, letter # 7692 (p. 478).
Ah, ma foi, je n'en sais rien; moi je suis mon ancetre.
— Faith, I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.
— Junot, Duc d'Abrantes, when asked as to his ancestry.
Rents once sais, thirs nothin like a darker skin tone tae increase the vigilance ay the police n the magistrates: too right.
— Spud, "Kicking Again: Na Na and Other Nazis" (Chapter 3, Story 2)
Ah jist shrugged, -- Well, as one anarchist plumber sais tae the other: smash the cistern.
— A conversation between plumbers.
— "A Blockage in the System"
Prier le Je Ne sais Qui J'espère:;: Jesus-Christ.
eugène ionesco— Pray to the I don't-know-who
I hope : Jesus Christ.Inscription on his tombstone.
Someone arrived there who lifted the veil of the goddess , at sais. But what did he see? He saw wonder of wonders himself.
novalis— Novalis here alludes to Plutarch's account of the shrine of the goddess Minerva, identified with Isis, at Sais, which he reports had the inscription "I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised."
Ah jist shrugged, -- Well, as one anarchist plumber sais tae the other: smash the cistern.
Irvine Welsh— A conversation between plumbers.
— "A Blockage in the System"
Ô toi, le plus savant et le plus beau des Anges, Dieu trahi par le sort et privé de louanges, Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère! Ô Prince de l'exil, à qui l'on a fait tort Et qui, vaincu, toujours te redresses plus fort, Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère! Toi qui sais tout, grand roi des choses souterraines, Guérisseur familier des angoisses humaines, Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère! Toi qui, même aux lépreux, aux parias maudits, Enseignes par l'amour le goût du Paradis, Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!
Charles Baudelaire— O wise among all Angels ordinate,
God foiled of glory, god betrayed by fate,
Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
O Prince of Exile doomed to heinous wrong,
Who, vanquished, riseth ever stark and strong,
Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
Thou knowest all, proud king of occult things,
Familiar healer of man's sufferings,
Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
Thy love wakes thirst for Heaven in one and all:
Leper, pimp, outcast, fool and criminal,
Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!"Les Litanies de Satan" [Litanies of Satan] [19]
Je ne sais pas de lecture plus facile, plus attrayante, plus douce que celle d'un catalogue.
anatole france— I do not know any reading more easy, more fascinating, more delightful than a catalogue.La Bûche [The Log] (December 24, 1849)
