"France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams." - Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

"France has cherished words to the point of vice, and at the expense of things. Dubious of our possibilities of knowing, she is not so of our possibilities of formulating our doubts." - E. M. Cioran, The Temptation to Exist

"How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?" - Charles de Gaulle, quoted in Newsweek

"Bouillabaisse is only good because cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty matchboxes." - NORMAN DOUGLAS, Siren Lands

"The French woman says, 'I am a woman and a Parisienne, and nothing foreign to me appears altogether human'." - RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Uncollected Lectures

"Yet, who can help loving the land that has taught us, Six hundred and eighty-five ways to dress eggs?" - THOMAS MOORE, The Fudge Family in Paris

"L'amour vient de l'aveuglement, l'amitie de la connaisance. T: 'Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge.'" - Bussy-Rabutin, Compte des

"How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?" - DeGaulle, Charles

"Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own laguage, and forthwith it is something entirely different." - Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832)

"I can speak French but I cannot understand it." - Twain, Mark [pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)