Luc de Clapiers Quotes

None are more liable to mistakes than those who act only on second thoughts.

The common excuse for those bringing misfortune on others is that they desire their good.

Few maxims are true in every respect.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

Jealousy is the paralysis of love.

Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.

It is not in everyone's power to secure wealth, office, or honors; but everyone may be good, generous, and wise.

Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.

The counsels of old age give light without heat, like the sun in winter.

It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.

The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.

Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.

Men despise great projects when they do not feel themselves capable of great successes.

We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design.

The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers.

Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives.

Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.

It is easy to criticize an author, but difficult to appreciate him.

Courage is adversity's lamp.

We must expect everything and fear everything from time and from men.

We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.

To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die.

If passion sometimes counsels greater boldness than does reflection, it gives more strength to execute it.

The maxims of men reveal their characters.

Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.

All erroneous ideas would perish of their own accord if given clear expression.

As a house implies a builder, and a garment a weaver, and a door a carpenter, so does the existence of the Universe imply a Creator.

Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

Few people are modest enough to be estimated at their true worth.

Great men are sometimes so even in small things.

When we feel that we lack whatever is needed to secure someone else's esteem, we are very close to hating him

Man never rises to great truths without enthusiasm.

In order to do great things, it is necessary to live as if one was never to die.

Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.

The young suffer less from their own errors than from the cautiousness of the old.

Action makes more fortune than caution.

All men are born truthful and die liars.

We ought never to be afraid to repeat an ancient truth, when we feel that we can make it more striking by a neater turn, or bring it alongside of another truth, which may make it clearer, and thereby accumulate evidence. It belongs to the inventive faculty to see clearly the relative state of things, and to be able to place them in connection; but the discoveries of ages gone by belong less to their first authors than to those who make them practically useful to the world.

We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.

When we are sick our virtues and our vices are in abeyance.

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

He who knows how to suffer everything can dare everything.

Wit does not take the place of knowledge.

There does not exist a man sufficiently intelligent never to be tiresome.

Everyone is born sincere and dies deceivers.

To withdraw ourselves from the law of the strong, we have found ourselves obliged to submit to justice. Justice or might, we must choose between these two masters.

Indolence is the sleep of the mind.