Patience is the art of hoping.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
We are too inattentive or too much occupied with ourselves to understand each other. Whoever has seen masks at a ball dance amicably together, and hold hands without knowing each other, to part the moment after to see each other no more, nor to regret each other, can form some idea of society.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The tempests of youth are mingled with days of brilliant sunshine.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skilful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
No one likes to be pitied for his faults.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Despair puts the last touch not only to our misery but also to our weakness.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Necessity moderates more troubles than reason.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
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 too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Nothing endures except truth.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
It is easier to say new things than to reconcile those which have already been said.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The best things are the most common.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
We are not greatly pleased that our friends should respect our good qualities if they venture to perceive our faults.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Fools do not understand men of intelligence.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
It is in our own mind and not in exterior objects that we perceive most things; fools know scarcely anything because they are empty, and their heart is narrow; but great souls find in themselves a number of exterior things; they have no need to read or to travel or to listen or to work to discover the highest truths; they have only to delve into themselves and search, if we may say so, their own thoughts.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Prosperity makes few friends.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
A man can hardly be said to have made a fortune if he does not know how to enjoy it.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
In order to protect himself from force, man was obliged to submit to justice. Justice or force: he was compelled to choose between the two masters, so little are we made to be independent.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Mediocre men sometimes fear great office, and when they do not aim at it, or when they refuse it, all that is to be concluded is that they are aware of their mediocrity.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Peace renders nations happier and men weaker.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Clearness is the ornament of deep thought.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Consciousness of our strength increases it.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
He who knows how to suffer everything can dare everything.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
We must not be timid from a fear of committing faults: the greatest fault of all is to deprive oneself of experience.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The most absurd and the most rash hopes have sometimes been the cause of extraordinary success.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
I do not approve the maxim which desires _a man to know a little of everything_. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
You must maintain strength of body in order to preserve strength of mind.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Great thoughts come from the heart.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Sometimes a lengthened period of prosperity melts away in a moment; just as the heat of summer flies before a day of tempest.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Obscurity is the kingdom of error.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers. I, on the contrary, maintain that they ought to be praised in their lifetime if they merit it; but jealousy and calumny, roused against their virtue or their talent, labour to degrade them if any one ventures to bear testimony to them. It is unjust criticism that they should fear to hazard, not sincere praise.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
It is sometimes easier to form a party than to attain by degrees the head of a party already formed.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The light of the dawn is not so sweet as the first glimpses of fame.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Extreme distrust is not less harmful than its opposite; the greater part of men are useless to him who will not risk being deceived.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
Necessity embitters the evils which it cannot cure.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
The maxims of men reveal their hearts.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES, Reflections and Maxims
