Philibert Joseph Roux Quotes

God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home.

When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths.

Solitude vivifies, isolation kills.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite impressions.

There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them.

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

I look at what I have not and think myself unhappy; others look at what I have and think me happy.

Conscientious men are, almost everywhere, less encouraged than tolerated.

Nothing vivifies, and nothing kills, like the emotions.

There are people who laugh to show their fine teeth; and there are those who cry to show their good hearts.

Persons of delicate taste endure stupid criticism better than they do stupid praise.

In youth one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears

The orator is the mouth (os) of a nation.

The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.

When unhappy, one doubts everything when happy one doubts nothing.

Lofty mountains are full of springs; great hearts are full of tears.

Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse.

What is slander? A verdict of "guilty" pronounced in the absence of the accused, with closed doors, without defence or appeal, by an interested and prejudiced judge.

Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.

Since unhappiness excites interest, many, in order to render themselves interesting, feign unhappiness.

Present unhappiness is selfish; past sorrow is compassionate.

Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know.

Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving.

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.

Great souls are harmonious.

No labor is hopeless.

Everything that is exquisite hides itself.

We distrust our heart too much, and our head not enough.

We often experience more regret over the part we have left, than pleasure over the part we have preferred.

At first we hope too much and later on, not enough.

That which we know is but little; that which we have a presentiment of is immense; it is in this direction that the poet outruns the learned man.

It is impossible to be just if one is not generous.

To love is to choose.

Interest, ambition, fortune, time, temper, love, all kill friendship.

The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

Friends are rare for, the good reason that men are not common.

Friendship is the ideal; friends are the reality; reality always remains far apart from the ideal.

A face which is always serene possesses a mysterious and powerful attraction: sad hearts come to it as to the sun to warm themselves again.

The chief cause of our misery is less the violence of our passions than the feebleness of our virtues.

The egoist does not tolerate egoism.

Philosophers call God the great unknown The great misknown is more like it!

We are more conscious that a person is in the wrong when the wrong concerns ourselves.

The city does not take away, neither does the country give, solitude; solitude is within us.

That which deceives us and does us harm, also undeceives us and does us good.

What is experience? A poor little hut constructed from the ruins of the palace of gold and marble called our illusions.

What is love? two souls and one flesh; friendship? two bodies and one soul.

Pleasure once tasted satisfies less than the desire experienced for its torments.

Not all of those to whom we do good love us, neither do all those to whom we do evil hate us.