Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne Quotes

Gloom and sadness are poison to us, and the origin of hysterics. You are right in thinking that this disease is in the imagination; you have defined it perfectly; it is vexation which causes it to spring up, and fear that supports it.

there are some people who never acknowledge themselves in the wrong; God help them!

We are always on the side of those who speak last.

matrimony is a very dangerous disorder; I had rather drink.

The desire to be singular and to astonish by ways out of the common seems to me to be the source of many virtues.

We are never satisfied with having done well; and in endeavoring to do better, we do much worse.

There is no real evil in life, except great pain; all the rest is imaginary, and depends on the light in which we view things

There are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night.

[After being corrected by a grammarian for using the feminine pronoun instead of the pseudogeneric masculine:] As you please, but for my part, if I were to express myself so, I should fancy I had a beard.

... Providence conducts us with so much kindness through the different periods of our life, that we scarcely feel the change; our days glide gently and imperceptibly along, like the motion of the hour-hand, which we cannot discover. ... we advance gradually; we are the same to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day: thus we go on, without perceiving it, which is a miracle of the Providence I adore.

. . . long journeys are strange things: if we were always to continue in the same mind we are in at the end of a journey, we should never stir from the place we were then in . . .

I pity those who have no taste for reading.

It is a disgraceful thing to be ignorant.

The human heart will never wrinkle

Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it.

war often breaks out when there is the most talk of peace.

Occupation is the best safeguard for women under all circumstances--mental or physical, or both. Cupid extinguishes his torch in the atmosphere of industry.

I fear nothing so much as a man who is witty all day long.

Happiness, like misfortunes, never comes alone.

Death makes us all equal.

It is not always sorrow that opens the fountains of the eyes.

Religious people spend so much time with their confessors because they like to talk about themselves.

If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?

I do not like to employ secretaries that have more wit than myself. I am afraid to make them write all my nonsense.