Il y a une chose dont je suis absolument certain, c'est que si on se prend au sérieux, on ne peut pas faire de travail sérieux.
“There is one thing I am absolutely certain of: if you take yourself seriously, you cannot do serious work.”
Victor's reflection on humility in science and leadership, drawn from decades directing the French Polar Expeditions organization that founded the research stations across the sub-Antarctic territories.
— Paul-Émile Victor, French Southern Territories
Source: Paul-Émile Victor, attributed; French quotation compilations (Babelio, Dicocitations)
More Proverbs from French Southern Territories
There is no doubt that mines of every kind will be found there, at least copper, iron, and lead… Southern France will supply timber for construction and masts, tar, and hemp.
Kerguelen's optimistic 1772 report to King Louis XV, describing the newly sighted southern land as rich in resources — a claim later exposed as wild exaggeration once the barren, wind-scoured islands were properly explored.
I immediately sent one of our sailors to unfurl a flag on these lands which no human being had ever seen or set foot upon before us.
Dumont d'Urville's own account of claiming Adélie Land for France on 21 January 1840 — the first confirmed landing on the Antarctic mainland by a French expedition.
Eternal gratitude to she who, three times, allowed me to sail around the world, taking upon herself our family duties and the weight of our separation.
The tribute Dumont d'Urville gave his crew when naming the newly discovered Antarctic coast "Terre Adélie" after his wife Adèle, who endured three long expeditions apart from him.
Why not?
As a boy, Charcot answered every doubter of his ambition to become a sailor and polar explorer with this reply — he later named all four of his expedition ships Pourquoi-Pas?, including the one that carried French science into the southern and Antarctic seas.
North wind in the morning, bringing with it mist and fine rain — always the notorious boucaille.
A logbook entry from Charcot's first French Antarctic expedition, capturing the harsh, unpredictable weather ("boucaille" — a sailors' term for thick fog and drizzle) that defines the southern seas around territories such as Kerguelen and Crozet.
The sound of escaping steam, or of some great circular saw, made by a whale or a humpback as it comes up to breathe at the surface of the water.
Charcot's field description of whales surfacing near his ship, part of the scientific observations gathered during France's early Antarctic and sub-Antarctic expeditions.