Francois Villon Quotes

In my own country I am in a far off land. I am strong but have no power. I win all yet remain a loser. At break of day I say goodnight. When I lie down I have great fear of falling.

I die of thirst beside the fountain.

Yet, if the world were bettered by My death or story left untold, I would condemn myself to die For misdemeanours manifold: I bring no harm to young or old Alive or dead, in either case: A man so needy never rolled A mountain from its resting place.

Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine, Qu'Anglais brulerent a Rouen, Ou sont-elles, Vierge souv'raine, Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Don’t regret the past, sometimes things happen for a good reason. Life is like a mosaic. From up close it may seem like a mess, but from afar it creates a beautiful picture.

Listen," Francois said. "Yonder is Paris --laughing, tragic Paris, who once had need of a singer to proclaim her splendor and all her misery. Fate made the man; in necessity's mortar she pounded his soul into the shape Fate needed. To king's courts she lifted him; to thieves' hovels she thrust him down; and past Lutetia's palaces and abbeys and taverns and lupanars and gutters and prisons and its very gallows--past each in turn the man was dragged, that he might make the Song of Paris. He could not have made it here in the smug Rue Saint Jacques. Well! the song is made, Catherine. So long as Paris endures, Francois Villon will be remembered. Villon the singer Fate fashioned as was needful: and, in this fashioning, Villon the man was damned in body and soul. And by God! the song was worth it!