A Quote by Baron de Montesquieu

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

Baron de Montesquieu

Quote Topics

Adverse Alone Equally Excess Fortune Happiness Inclined Inspire Mediocrity Men Misery Mixture Monks Pity Prosperous Severity Us Witness

Quote Author

Baron de Montesquieu
French - Author
January 18, 1689 - February 10, 1755

Equally inured by moderation either state to bear, prosperous or adverse.

John Milton

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Happiness should be a means of accomplishment, like health, not an end in itself.

Helen Keller

It is better to err by excess of mercy than by excess of severity. . .Wilt thou become a Saint? Be severe to thyself but kind to others.

Saint John Chrysostom

... bringing up daughters for nothing but marriage, mingles poison in the cup of domestic life, is traitorous to the virtue of both sexes, for neither suffers alone--is adverse to the happiness, to the development of conscience and to religion, and introduces to the dwellings of wretchedness and despair. The result of this degradation is pride, intemperance, licentiousness--nay, every vice, misery, and degradation.

Harriot Kezia Hunt

There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully

Baruch Spinoza

We are inclined to call things by the wrong names. We call prosperity 'happiness', and adversity 'misery' eventhough adversity is the school of wisdom and often the way to eternal happiness.

William Penn

To me there’s no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They’re all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.

Woody Allen

Nothing can make you happier than you are. All search for happiness is misery and leads to more misery. The only happiness worth the name is the natural happiness of conscious being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.

C. S. Lewis

Happy it were for us all if we bore prosperity as well and as wisely as we endure adverse fortune.

Robert Southey

If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.