Zitate von François Mauriac
François Mauriac
Geburtstag: 11. Oktober 1885
Todesdatum: 1. September 1970
François Mauriac war ein französischer Schriftsteller.
Der als achter französischer Autor 1952 mit dem Nobelpreis ausgezeichnete Mauriac gilt als einer der bedeutendsten Romanciers der Zeit zwischen den Weltkriegen und als wichtiger Vertreter des 'renouveau catholique', einer sich um 1890 herausbildenden linkskatholischen, d. h. sich an der katholischen Soziallehre orientierenden Bewegung.
Zitate François Mauriac
„I remained standing in the middle of the room, swaying on my feet as though I had received a blow. I thought of my life and saw what it had been. No one could swim against such a current of mud. I had been a man so horrible that he could have no friend. But wasn't that, I asked myself, because I had always been incapable of wearing a disguise? If all men went through life with unmasked faces, as I had done for half a century, one might be surprised to find how little difference there was between them. But, in fact, no one lives with his face uncovered, no one. Most men ape greatness or nobility. Though they do not know it, they conform to certain fixed types, literary or other. This the saints know, and they hate and despise themselves because they see themselves with unclouded eyes. I should not have been so universally condemned had I not been so defenseless, so open, and so naked.“
— Francois Mauriac, Viper's Tangle
„Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell.“
— Francois Mauriac
Context: Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell.
Journal, 1932-1939 (Paris: Table ronde, 1947) p. 278; Adrienne Foulke (trans.) Second Thoughts (Plainview, NY: Books for Libraries Press, [1961] 1973) p. 148.
„Very little would have been needed for the tears of Judas to be allied in the memory of mankind with those of Peter.“
— Francois Mauriac
Context: Very little would have been needed for the tears of Judas to be allied in the memory of mankind with those of Peter. He might have become a saint, the patron of all of us who constantly betray Christ.
Vie de Jésus (Paris: Flammarion, 1936) p. 257; Julie Kernan (trans.) Life of Jesus (New York: David McKay, [1937] 1951) p. 223.
