Luc De Clapiers Quotes

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves.

The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains.

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

You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.

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

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Action makes more fortune than caution.

Courage is adversity's lamp.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

All grand thoughts come from the heart.

The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.

Emotions have taught mankind to reason.

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.

Those who can bear all can dare all.

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

Peace renders nations happier and men weaker.

One can not be just if one is not humane.

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.

Give help rather than advice.

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.

Consciousness of our powers augments them.

More are taken in by hope than by cunning.

The maxims of men reveal their characters.

We should expect the best and the worst from mankind as from the weather.

It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.

Consciousness of our strength increases it.

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.

The usual pretext of those who make others unhappy is that they do it for their own good.

Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.

It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed but uniformity.

Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.

Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

Indolence is the sleep of the mind.

Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.

The conscience of the dying belies their life.

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.

Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.

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

Whoever has seen the masked at a ball dance amicably together, and take hold of hands without knowing each other, leaving the next moment to meet no more, can form an idea of the world.

Our actions are neither so good nor so evil as our impulses.

We often quarrel with the unfortunate to get rid of pitying them.

The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.

We are not greatly pleased that our friends should respect our good qualities if they venture to perceive our faults.

All that is unfair, offends us if it's not beneficial for us

The mind is the soul's eye, not its source of power. That lies in the heart, in other words, in the passions.

We are dismayed when we find that even disaster cannot cure us of our faults.

Obscurity is the realm of error.