50+ Best Paris Quotes (For Your Instagram Captions)

If you’re looking for Paris quotes for Instagram, then you’ve found the right post. I’ve gathered dozens of inspiring phrases about the French city, to match your travel photos! And if you haven’t visited Paris yet, don’t worry. I’m sure these Paris quotes will ignite your wanderlust!

Paris is not only one of the best places to visit in France but also a perfect destination for all history, culture, art, architecture, and gastronomy lovers. After all, the so-called “City of Lights” is one of the most visited sites in Europe and in the world!

Over its many centuries of history, Paris has inspired thousands of famous artists and personalities to express their feelings for it. And today it continues to delight tourists and travelers, who come from all over the world to explore the beautiful capital of France.

So, do you want to learn 50+ Best Paris Quotes (For Your Instagram Captions)? Keep reading!

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Best Paris Quotes
Best Paris Quotes

Best Paris Quotes by Famous Artists

Almost all of the Paris quotes that I found were from artists. Which is no surprise at all, right? Painters, authors, writers, playwrights, poets, actors, directors, composers, designers, fashion designers, fashion models… the list goes on when the common subject is Paris!

Best Paris Quotes by French Artists

1. “In Paris, I really do like to try and do nothing… but that’s impossible.” – Christian Louboutin (fashion designer)

2. “In Paris, our lives are one masked ball.” – Gaston Leroux (journalist and author)

3. “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.” – Gustave Flaubert (novelist)

4. “Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.” – Honoré de Balzac (novelist and playwright)

5. “In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.” – Jean Cocteau (poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist, and critic)

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6. “Just add three letters to Paris, and you have paradise.” – Jules Renard (author)

7. “I have the feeling that I was born in Vienna in order to live in Paris.” – Romy Schneider (German-French actress)

8. “Breathe Paris in. It nourishes the soul.” – Victor Hugo (poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist)

9. “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 (poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist)

10. “To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!” – Victor Hugo (poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist)

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Best Paris Quotes by Other Artists

11. “I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It’s an incredibly romantic and beautiful place.” – Alan Furst (American author)

12. “Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It’s where it all began and ended.” – Alan Furst (American author)

13. “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 (American poet and writer)

14. “Paris, true to its promise, had been a place of civilized indecencies, or uncivil decencies.” – Ana Castillo (Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, and translator)

15. “Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets – as vast and indestructible as nature itself.

All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower.

Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her – and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.” – Anne Rice (American author)

16. “It’s true, you never forget your first love, and for me, that will always be Paris.” – Caitríona Balfe (Irish actress, producer, and former fashion model)

17. “Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Spanish novelist)

18. “What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!” – Charles Dickens (English writer and social critic)

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19. “Paris is a city where even the most outrageous story… is greeted with a verbal shrug: ‘Mais c’est normal!’” – Edmund White (American novelist, memoirist, and essayist)

20. “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 (American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman)

21. “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy – at home and in Paris.” – Ernest Hemingway (American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman)

22. “An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, writer, and philologist)

23. “America is my country and Paris is my hometown.” – Gertrude Stein (American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector)

24. “London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.” – G. K. Chesterton (English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary & art critic)

25. “Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can’t wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.” – Henry Miller (American writer and artist)

26. “To know Paris is to know a great deal.” – Henry Miller (American writer and artist)

27. “When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.” – Henry Miller (American writer and artist)

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28. “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 (American cartoonist, author, humorist, journalist, and playwright)

29. “Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.” – John Berger (English art critic, novelist, painter, and poet)

30. “It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist’s studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.” – Julian Barnes (English writer)

31. “A final reminder. Whenever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh.” – Kate Simon (American author)

32. “I am going to enjoy life in Paris I know. It is so human and there is something noble in the city… It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for everybody to see.” – Katherine Mansfield (New Zealander writer, essayist, and journalist)

33. “I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.” – Kristin Hannah (American writer)

34. “Paris… There you can be whatever you want to be. Totally yourself.” – Langston Hughes (American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist)

35. “In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.” – Mark Twain (American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer)

36. “Paris is a mighty schoolmaster, a grand enlightener of the provincial intellect.” – Mary Elizabeth Braddon (English novelist)

37. “The shopping, the food, the views! Paris is a city that entrances us all – and I’m no exception.” – Michael Kors (American fashion designer)

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38. “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 (American author and book marketing executive)

39. “I like The Eiffel Tower because it looks like steel and lace.” – Natalie Lloyd (American children’s author)

40. “Paris is not a city, it is the image, the symbol of France, it’s today and yesterday, the reflection of its history, its geography and its hidden essence.” – Nina Berberova (Russian writer)

41. “When good Americans die, they go to Paris.” – Oscar Wilde (Irish poet and playwright)

42. “Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.” – Paula McLain (American author)

43. “I know so much is going to happen here, but I just don’t know how. It feels like Paris is full of so many adventures just waiting to be had.” – Rachel Kapelke-Dale (American author)

44. “There should be a name for the syndrome that occurs when you’re in Paris and you already miss it.” – Rosecrans Baldwin (American novelist and essayist)

45. “The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.” – T. S. Eliot (American poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, and editor)

46. “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 (Dutch painter)

47. “Paris is a place where, for me, just walking down a street that I’ve never been down before is like going to a movie or something. Just wandering the city is entertainment.” – Wes Anderson (American filmmaker)

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Best Paris Quotes by Famous Personalities

If you think that only artists express how they feel about this city – which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site – think again! There are countless Paris quotes written or uttered by the military, heads of state, philosophers, historians, and former Kings and Emperors of France!

Best Paris Quotes by French Personalities

48. “Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated!” – Charles de Gaulle (army officer, statesman, and former Prime Minister & President of France)

49. “Paris is not a city; it’s a world.” – Francis I (former King of France)

50. “Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.” – Montesquieu (judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher)

51. “Secrets travel fast in Paris.” – Napoleon Bonaparte (military, political leader, and former Emperor of France)

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Best Paris Quotes by Other Personalities

52. “Paris is the city in which one loves to live. Sometimes I think this is because it is the only city in the world where you can step out of a railway station – the Gare D’Orsay – and see, simultaneously, the chief enchantments: the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs Élysées – nearly everything except the Luxembourg Gardens and the Palais Royal. But what other city offers as much as you leave a train?” – Margaret C. Anderson (American editor and publisher)

53. “A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.” – Thomas Jefferson (American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, Founding Father, and former president of the United States)

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