Since I first visited in 2011, Paris has always been special for me. It’s where I first learned of the flâneur, the purposely aimless city wanderer, and where I was inspired to explore more of the world.
During my month-long visit there a few years back about, I set out to truly embody the flâneur lifestyle. I spend my time wandering Paris’ charming streets, appreciating architectural details, strolling along the Seine, stumbling upon hidden cafes, and soaking in the city’s unique energy.
Let’s just say this city has a way of waking up your senses and sparking new perspectives.
No wonder it’s been a source of inspiration for countless artists, writers and romantics throughout history.
Whether you’re a first-time visitor or have been lucky enough to call Paris home, these quotes about Paris capture the allure of this storied city.
Quotes About Paris
London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Coming [to Paris] has been a wonderful experience, surprising in many respects, one of them being to find how much of an American I am.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Paris is narcotic for a man alone, a never-ending labyrinth where the anxiety of freedom is relieved.
Federico Castigliano
April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom, holiday tables under the trees.
Yip Harburg
Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
John Berger
The old Paris is no more (the form of a city changes faster, alas! than a mortal’s heart).
Charles Baudelaire
Paris… is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail.
Edmund White
I love Paris in the summer, when it sizzles.
Cole Porter
With an apple I will astonish Paris.
Paul Cezanne
Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilization. It’s where it all began and ended.
Alan Furst
A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.
Thomas Jefferson
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.
Jean Cocteau
You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what’s so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden.
Allen Ginsberg
If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
Ernest Hemingway
What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!
Charles Dickens
There is but one Paris and however hard living may be here, and if it became worse and harder even—the French air clears up the brain and does good—a world of good.
Vincent Van Gogh
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
Baron de Montesquieu
As an artist one has no home in Europe except in Paris.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.
Paula McLain
America is my country and Paris is my hometown.
Gertrude Stein
There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.
Ernest Hemingway
When good Americans die, they go to Paris.
Oscar Wilde
I think Paris smells, and not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She’s a city for all the senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and yes, for mysteries.
M.J. Rose
Secrets travel fast in Paris.
Napoleon Bonaparte
To know Paris is to know a great deal.
Henry Miller
I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.
Ernest Hemingway
Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.
Honoré de Balzac
To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.
Victor Hugo
The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay, I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café.
Oscar Hammerstein
Breathe Paris in. It nourishes the soul.
Victor Hugo
Paris is a hard place to leave, even when it rains incessantly and one coughs continually from the dampness.
Willa Cather
Paris…is loath to surrender itself to people who are in a hurry; it belongs to the dreams, to those capable of amusing themselves in its streets without regard to time when urged business requires their presence elsewhere.
Julien Green
I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It’s an incredibly romantic and beautiful place.
Alan Furst
Paris at dawn is one of those rare cities where you get the impression that something worthwhile could actually happen to you.
Pierre Assouline
He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime.
Victor Hugo
…the whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music…it is worth anyone’s while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in Everything.
James Thurber
She wanted to pass, but she also wanted to live in Paris.
Gustave Flaubert
Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. It brings tears to your eyes.
Lee Radziwill
Paris is not a city; it’s a world.
King Francis
To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!
Victor Hugo
When Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold.
Klemens von Metternich
Paris is a divine section of eternity.
E.E. Cummings
Flowers never look so lovely as they do in Paris in the market there.
Agatha Christie
Paris was a museum displaying exactly itself.
Jeffrey Eugenides
The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.
T.S. Eliot
Paris is a city where time is best to spend doing nothing.
Erich Maria Remarque
Paris – There you can be whatever you want to be. Totally yourself.
Langston Hughes
Paris is a woman but London is an independent man puffing his pipe in a pub.
Jack Kerouac
In Paris, our lives are one masked ball.
Gaston Leroux
Parting Words
No other city in the world inspires the thoughts and emotions that Paris does. Poets, artists, and writers have waxed poetic about it for centuries, and I have no trouble seeing why.
Everything about Paris seems to call out to flaneurs — observers who appreciate the small details and beauty of life.
What are your favorite quotes about Paris? Let me know in the comments below.
P.S. If you liked this, you may also enjoy our related quote collections:
- Walter Benjamin Quotes
- Charles Baudelaire Quotes
- Quotes About Flanerie
- Quotes About Relaxation
- Quotes About Society
Originally published October 25, 2022. The date of the last significant edit is reflected at the top of the post.
