Vivre sa vie (1962)

Brice Parain: Le philosophe

Quotes 

• Nana : Shouldn't love be the only truth?

  The Philosopher : For that, love would always have to be true.

• The Philosopher : It's in Plato, you know. It's an old idea. I don't think one can distinguish a thought from the words that express it. A moment of thought can only be grasped through words.

• The Philosopher : We must think, and for thoughts, we need words. To communicate, one must speak. That's our life.

• The Philosopher : Do you know anyone who knows right off what he loves? No. When you're 20, you don't know. All you know are bits and pieces. You grasp at experience. At that age, "I love" is a mixture of many things. To be completely at one with what you love takes maturity. That means searching. That's the truth of life.

• The Philosopher : An instant of thought can only be grasped through words.

• The Philosopher : Have you read, "The Three Musketeers"?

  Nana : No, but, I saw the movie. Why?

  The Philosopher : Because in it, Porthos - actually, this is from "Twenty Years Later" - Porthos is tall, strong, and a little dense. He's never had a thought in his life. He has to place a bomb in a cellar to blow it up. He does it. He places the bomb, lights the fuse, and starts to run away. But just then he begins to think. About what? How it's possible to put one foot in front of the other. I'm sure that's happened to you. So he stops running. He can't move forward. The bomb explodes and the cellar caves in around him. He holds it up with his strong shoulders. But after a day or two, he's crushed to death. So the first time he thought, it killed him.

• The Philosopher : Someone once told me, "There's truth in everything, even in error."

  The Philosopher : It's true. It's true. That's what France didn't see in the 17th century. They thought one could avoid errors and lies, that one could live directly in the truth. I don't think it's possible. Hence Kant, Hegel, German philosophy: to bring us back to life and make us see that we must pass through error to arrive at truth.

• Nana : What do you think about love?

  The Philosopher : The body had to come into it, and indeed, Leibniz introduced the contingent. Contingent truths and necessary truths make up life. German philosophy show us that in life, one thinks with the constraints and errors of life. One must manage with that. It's true.

• The Philosopher : One should be able to express oneself. We manage to write things quite well. It's extraordinary that someone like Plato can still be understood. People really do understand him! Yet he wrote in Greek. 2,500 years ago? No one really knows the language, not exactly. Yet something gets through, so we should be able to express ourselves.

• The Philosopher : We must think and for thought we need words. To communicate, one must speak. That's our life.