André Malraux was born on November 3, 1901 in Paris. After he dropped out of school, he went to Cambodia. It was in there that he discovered the corruption of the colonial world and the poverty and misery of the natives. He would used this observation to create a political awareness. Between 1924 to 1925, he led a newspaper which denounced the political and colonial system in Indochina. His trip would influence him to write his first novel, The Human Condition, which he published in 1933.
While Fascism was on the rise with Hitler taking power, and the Spanish Civil War a reality, Malraux believed that communism was the answer to fight fascism, and he supported the Popular Front government in Spain. He was a mediator between Leon Blum and President Manuel Azana to buy aircraft. He published L’Espoir, a novel which describes his experience in 1937.
During the Second World War, Malraux led a group of guerrillas and was arrested by the Gestapo. His actions during the Resistance attracted the interest of Charles de Gaulle. The latter made Malraux the Minister of Information in 1945, and the Minister of Cultural Affairs. Malraux, the revolutionary and man of letters, assumed this position for 11 years.
André Malraux is considered by many to be the greatest consciousness of the twentieth century. He was admired by Albert Camus, and by those who fought against the colonial system worldwide, his novel, La Condition Humaine, won the Prix Goncourt in 1933, and in 1999 it was named number five in Le Monde’s 100 Books of the Century.
Malraux’s quotes about colonialism, man’s role in society, politics are precise and very thoughtful.
The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without ‘playing up’ to anyone – even to himself.
Andre Malraux
War puts its questions stupidly, peace mysteriously.
Andre Malraux
To the humblest among them, who may be listening to me now, I want to say that the masterpiece to which you are paying historic homage this evening is a painting which he has saved.
Andre Malraux
To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less.
Andre Malraux
There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.
Andre Malraux
Then I despair… I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always.
Andre Malraux
The crucial discovery was made that, in order to become painting, the universe seen by the artist had to become a private one created by himself.
Andre Malraux
The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell.
Andre Malraux
Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real.
Andre Malraux
Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act.
Andre Malraux
There are not fifty ways of fighting, there’s only one, and that’s to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.
Andre Malraux
And when man faces destiny, destiny ends and man comes into his own.
Andre Malraux
Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.
Andre Malraux
Genius is not perfected, it is deepened. It does not so much interpret the world as fertilize itself with it.
Andre Malraux
Man knows that the world is not made on a human scale; and he wishes that it were.
Andre Malraux
An art book is a museum without walls.
Andre Malraux
Always, however brutal an age may actually have been, its style transmits its music only.
Andre Malraux
All art is a revolt against man’s fate.
Andre Malraux
Communism destroys democracy. Democracy can also destroy Communism.
Andre Malraux
Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved.
Andre Malraux
The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell.
Andre Malraux
History may clarify our understanding of the supreme work of art, but can never account for it completely; for the Time of art is not the same as the Time of history.
Andre Malraux
In the realm of human destiny, the depth of man’s questionings is more important than his answers.
Andre Malraux
The terrible thing about death is that it transforms life into destiny.
Andre Malraux
There are not fifty ways of fighting, there is only one: to be the conqueror.
Andre Malraux
