Best Luc De Clapiers, Marquis De Vauvenargues Quotes

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

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

There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.

To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.

We are almost always guilty of the hate we encounter.

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

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

Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.

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

The idle always have a mind to do something.

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.

Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.

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

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.

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.

Of all pleasures the fruit of labor is the sweetest.

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

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