André Malraux Quotes

War puts its questions stupidly, peace mysteriously.

To the humblest among them, who may be listening to me now, I want to say that the masterpiece to which you are paying historic homage this evening is a painting which he has saved.

There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.

There are not fifty ways of fighting, there’s only one, and that’s to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.

The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without ‘playing up’ to anyone – even to himself.

The crucial discovery was made that, in order to become painting, the universe seen by the artist had to become a private one created by himself.

The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell.

Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real.

Man knows that the world is not made on a human scale; and he wishes that it were.

Communism destroys democracy. Democracy can also destroy Communism.

And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own.

An art book is a museum without walls.

Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act.