There is no one who cannot derive great help and great benefit from learning; but there are also only a few people who do not receive a great harm from the light and knowledge they have received by learning, unless they use their knowledge in a manner both fit and natural for them.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de SableJust as there is no action weaker or more unreasonable than to submit one's judgment to another's, where there is no advantage to oneself, so also there is nothing greater or wiser than to place oneself unquestioningly under God's judgment by believing in every word He speaks.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de SableLove is always master everywhere. It shapes the soul, the heart, and the mind wherever it exists. What matters is not the amount of love, but simply its existence in the mind and heart where it resides. And it truly appears that love is to the soul of the lover as the soul itself is to the body which it animates.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de SableStudy and research into truth often only serves to make us see by experience our natural ignorance.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de SableIt is an admirable skill to able to sweeten a refusal with civil words which atone for the favor which we are not able to grant.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de SableThe foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de SableThere is nothing that does not have something perfect in it; and it is the happiness of good taste to be able to find this perfection in all things. But there is a natural malignity that often discovers a vice in the midst of several virtues, in order to reveal and proclaim the discovery to all the world - a quality that is more the mark of a naturally evil temperament than a superior sense of discrimination. And it is truly an evil lot, to pass one's life always feeding off the imperfections of others.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable