Travel Inspiration

The Best Quotes about France

24/08/2021

Article written by Elisa - Travel Writer & Local in France
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France Quotes to Feed your Wanderlust from Home

France has been inspiring artists, creatives of all kinds, and travelers for centuries. It’s the kind of beautiful, historical, and romantic destination that everyone should see at least once in their life. Whether you enjoy fine dining, fashion, history, or a romantic atmosphere, France has something for everyone. That’s why there are so many quotes about France that try to capture the majesty and the wonder of this country.

If you need some France quotes to inspire your soul or to feed your wanderlust from home, then here are some of our favorite quotes about France.

Quotes About Paris

Best Day Trips from Paris

The heart of France and possibly the most romantic city in the world, Paris is a dream holiday destination for many people. That’s probably why there are so many quotes about Paris that try to evoke the wonder of traveling there. If you need a little of that inspiration, this is where you’ll find it.

But of Paris, it can be said that the right bank of the Seine belongs to the world and the left bank to France. Mary Butts

You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what’s so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden. – Allen Ginsberg

There’s nowhere that life feels more eternal, your dimwit youth more important, than Paris. – Charles Finch

It’s a great city, Paris, a beautiful city, and it was very good for me. – James Baldwin

Paris is always a good idea. – Audrey Hepburn

There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even – the French air clears up the brain and does good, a world of good. – Vincent Van Gogh

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, hen wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. – Ernest Hemingway

I do not believe there is another city on earth so beautiful as Paris nor another people with such an appreciation of the beautiful as the French – Edward Hopper

What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world! – Charles Dickens

Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history. – Anne Rice

Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art. – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant. – Honoré de Balzac

To know Paris is to know a great deal. – Henry Miller

Paris is the greatest temple ever built to material joys and the lust of the eyes. – Henry James

As an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Paris is not a city, it’s a world – King François I

When good Americans die, they go to Paris. – Oscar Wilde

I never understood why everyone was so crazy about Paris, but now… It’s so beautiful – The devil wears Prada

Quotes About Life in France

Wine of Provence, France

Have you ever read quotes about life in France and dreamed of living there yourself? Sipping fine wine and eating crunchy bread while looking out over stunning landscapes? Well, judging from the quotes about France that mention this lifestyle, you aren’t the only one.

France is the only country where the money falls apart and you can’t tear the toilet paper. – Billy Wilder

France has a clear and defined policy… The French know what they want. – Anton Chekov

Yes, sir, there are things to see and do on the French Riviera without spending money. – Robert A. Heinlein

I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality, and fraternity – Joséphine Baker

I just love France, I love French people, I love the French language, I love French food. I love their mentality. I just feel like it’s me. I’m very French. – Olga Kurylenko

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Quotes About French Culture and History

Ange au Sourire - Reims Cathedral

French culture and history have a richness that few other cultures can match. You can glimpse this richness and elegance in some of the quotes about France. Here are some of the best French quotes that do their best to describe and pass on this unique way of living so that as many people can enjoy it as possible. 

France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older – intelligence and good manners. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

France is the most civilized country in the world and doesn’t care who knows it. – John Gunther

In France, history is paralyzing. – Jean-Paul Gaultier

You should definitely visit the Louvre, a world-famous art museum where you can view, at close range, the backs of thousands of other tourists trying to see the Mona Lisa – Dave Barry

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. – Mark Twain

Boy, those French. They have a different word for everything. – Steve Martin

Quotes About French Food and Wine

Provençal Food

Food tastes different in France, just better in some indefinable way. It also helps that France is one of the world’s best foodie destinations too. This combination of taste and expertise is why there are so many mouth-watering quotes about French food and wine to get your stomach rumbling.

How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? – Charles de Gaulle

I hate France. It’s like the whole country’s on a diet. – Gordon Korman

Now nothing is real except French wine. – Conrad Kent Rivers

When I got to France I realized I didn’t know very much about food at all. – Julia Child

Inspirational French Quotes

Are you the type of person who loves to travel and dreams of far-flung locales and beautiful cities? There are lots of amazing destinations in the world, but you shouldn’t forget some of the old favorites. These French inspirational quotes will lift your heart and make your dream of traveling to France for the first time or on a return trip. There truly is no sweeter dream than that of exploring one of the most beautiful countries in the world.

Every man has two countries: his own and France. – John F. Kennedy

We had seen France in flames. We had seen the sun shining on the sea. We had grown old in the upper altitudes. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

France is beautiful. I stood at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower today and looked up at it. There are very few times in my life I’ve felt so small. – Leisa Rayven

France is to me the heroine in the romance of all the nations of all time. – William Arthur Sirmo

It was like the first time I visited Versailles. There was an eerieness like I’d been there before. I don’t know if I was Louis XIV or Marie Antoinette or a lowly groundskeeper, but I lived there. – Maurice Minnifield

You were never told that Saint-Tropez is paradise? – Karl Lagerfeld

I love France. It’s got the sun down at the bottom, the Alps for skiing, and all that wine and food. – Paul Hollywood

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