Popular French Sayings, Famous French Quotes

There are many french sayings that have crept over into the english language, that we often use as part of our everyday conversations. Mais oui!

In fact, nearly 40 percent of english vocabularly is of french origin.

Here are a few popular phrases we've come up with.

How many can you think of?

à la mode	fashionable
au contraire	to the contrary
faux pas	error/mistake
fait accompli	a done deal
avant garde	innovators (eg in art)
chaise longue	type of sofa
crème de la crème	best of the best
déjà vu	already seen
je ne sais quoi	something that is hard to describe
Ç'est la vie	that's life

If you'd like to learn or understand a few french sayings that are used in France, here are some common ones:

Ça m'est égal - I don't mind; Tant pis - never mind; or Ç'est dommage - what a shame.

We've also put together lots of useful french phrases which you might like to have a look at.

Famous French Quotes

Here are some of our favourite famous french quotes:

Généralement, les gens qui savant peu parlent beaucoup, et les gens qui savant beaucoup parlent peu.
Generally speaking, the people who know little speak a lot and the people who know a lot speak little.
(Rousseau, philosopher.)

Le plus grand faible des hommes, c'est l'amour qu'ils ont de la vie.
Man's greatest weakness is his love of life.
(Molière, playwright and actor.)

J'ai toujours vu que pour réussir dans le monde, il fallait avoir l'air fou et être sage.
I have always believed that to succeed in life, it is necessary to appear to be mad and to act wisely.
(Montesquieu, philosopher.)