Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbussewas a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party. He was a lifelong friend of Albert Einstein...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 May 1873
CountryFrance
wisdom ideas humanity
We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavor to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.
regret greatness humanity
I do not regret my youth and its beliefs. Up to now, I have wasted my time to live. Youth is the true force, but it is too rarely lucid. Sometimes it has a triumphant liking for what is now, and the pugnacious broadside of paradox may please it. But there is a degree in innovation which they who have not lived very much cannot attain. And yet who knows if the stern greatness of present events will not have educated and aged the generation which to-day forms humanity's effective frontier? Whatever our hope may be, if we did not place it in youth, where should we place it?
heartbreaking mankind slowness
At the touch of mankind, things wear away with heartbreaking slowness.
simple people lines
Let everything be remade on simple lines. There is only one people, there is only one people!
laughter ideas solitude
We have the divinity of our great misery. And our solitude, with its toilsome ideas, tears and laughter, is fatally divine.
suicide war army
Two armies that fight each other is like one large army that commits suicide.
men divinity inward
Yes, there is a Divinity, one from which we must never turn aside for the guidance of our huge inward life and of the share we have as well in the life of all men. It is called the truth.
people machines forgetfulness
People are machines of forgetfulness
eye men order
There are cloudy moments when one asks himself if men do not deserve all the disasters into which they rush! No - I recover myself - they do not deserve them. But we, instead of saying “I wish” must say “I will.” And what we will, we must will to build it, with order, with method, beginning at the beginning, when once we have been as far as that beginning. We must not only open our eyes, but our arms, our wings.
suicide army two
Two armies at death-grips — that is one great army committing suicide.
suicide poison hours
It was suicide. Others killed themselves with poison or with a revolver. I killed myself with minutes and hours.
believe solitude radiance
I believe that around us there is only one word on all sides, one immense word which reveals our solitude and extinguishes our radiance: Nothing! I believe that that word does not point to our insignificance or our unhappiness, but on the contrary to our fulfillment and our divinity, since everything is in ourselves.
want
It is not a woman I want - it is all women.
falling-in-love reality world
All lovers in the world are alike: they fall in love by chance; they see each other, and are attached to each other by the features of their faces; they illuminate each other by the fierce preference which is akin to madness; they assert the reality of illusions; and for a moment they change falsehood into truth.