A Quote by Jean de La Fontaine
Too many expedients may spoil an affair.
[Fr., Le trop d'expedients peut gater une affaire.]
Related Quotes
At times truth may not seem probable.
[Fr., Le vrai peut quelquefois n'etre pas vraisemblable.]
A blue-stocking is the scourge of her husband, children, friends, servants, and every one.
[Fr., Une femme bel-esprit est le fleau de son mari, de ses enfants, de ses amis, de ses valets, et tout le monde.]
Il y a deux sortes d'esprits, l'un ge ome trique, et l'autre que l'on peut appeler de finesse. Le premier a des vues lentes, dures et inflexibles; mais le dernier a une souplesse de pense e. There are two kinds of mind, one mathematical, the other what one might call the intuitive. The first takes a slow, firm, inflexible view, but the latter has flexibility of thought.
Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture.
[Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes; elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]
Honor is like an island, rugged and without shores; we can never re-enter it once we are on the outside.
[Fr., L'honneur est comme une ile escarpee et sans bords;
On n'y peut plus rentrer des qu'on en est dehors.]
Le vrai est trop simple, il faut y arriver toujours par le complique . Truth is too simple; it must always be arrived at in a complicated manner.
C'este donc par l'étude des mathématiques, et seulement par elle, que l'on peut se faire une idée juste et approfondie de ce que c'est qu'une science.
To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
Strategy is a system of expedients.
Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages.
What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.
It goes without saying that only inner greatness possess a true value ("une valeur véritable,", Fr.) . Any attempt to rise up (or at rising up, - "s'élever", Fr.) outwardly above others, or to want (or wish) to impose one's superiority, denote a lack of moral greatness, since we do not try to replace ("suppléer", Fr.) in that way (.... in French "par là", Fr.) to what, if we did really possess it, would have no need whatsoever to flaunt itself.
The finest poems of the world have been expedients to get bread.
The world is woman's book.
[Fr., Le monde est le livre des femmes.]
What harm in learning and getting knowledge even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a mitten, or a slipper.
[Fr., Que nuist savoir tousjours et tousjours apprendre, fust ce
D'un sot, d'une pot, d'une que--doufle
D'un mouffe, d'un pantoufle.]
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.
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