Top 211 Quotes & Sayings by Luc de Clapiers - Page 4

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

Few maxims are true in every respect.

The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.

Learn to overrule minor interest in favor of great ones, and generously to do all the good the heart prompts; a man is never injured by acting virtuously.

All that causes one man to differ from another is a very slight thing. What is it that is the origin of beauty or ugliness, health or weakness, ability or stupidity? A slight difference in the organs, a little more or a little less bile. Yet this more or less is of infinite importance to men; and when they think otherwise they are mistaken.

It is a great sign of mediocrity to praise always moderately.

Courage is adversity's lamp.

It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.

When we are sick our virtues and our vices are in abeyance.

All men are born truthful and die liars.

It is easier to say new things than to reconcile those which have already been said.

A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views.

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

The light of the dawn is not so sweet as the first glimpses of fame.

Truth is not so threadbare as speech, because fewer people can make use of it.

Nothing endures except truth.

No one is more liable to make mistakes than he who acts only on reflexion.

Man never rises to great truths without enthusiasm.

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.

Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.

We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design.

It is proof of a narrow mind when things worthy of esteem are distinguished from things worthy of love. Great minds naturally love whatever is worthy of their esteem.

Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives.

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 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.

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

We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.

Great men undertake great things because they are great; fools, because they think them easy.

If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural.

Excessive distrust is not less hurtfJul than its opposite. Most men become useless to him who is unwilling to risk being deceived.

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

Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits.