Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Genius and great abilities are often wanting; sometimes, only opportunities. Some deserve praise for what they have done; others for what they would have done.
Most men employ the first part of life to make the other part miserable. [Fr., La plupart des hommes emploient la premiere part vie a rendre l'autre miserable.]
When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.
Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity. [Fr., Les hommes rougissent moins de leur crimes que de leurs faiblesses et de leur vanite.]
There are three great events in our lives: birth, life and death. Of birth we have no conscience; with death, we suffer; and, concerning life, we forget to live it.
Love seizes us suddenly, without giving warning, and our disposition or our weakness favors the surprise; one look, one glance, from the fair fixes and determines us.
I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.
How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!
What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs.
Incivility is not a Vice of the Soul, but the effect of several Vices; of Vanity, Ignorance of Duty, Laziness, Stupidity, Distraction, Contempt of others, and Jealousy.
If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.
The State not seldom tolerates a comparatively great evil to keep out millions of lesser ills and inconveniences which otherwise would be inevitable and without remedy.
We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice
It seems to me that the spirit of politeness is a certain attention in causing that, by our words and by our manners, others may be content with us and with themselves.
The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes.
To be among people one loves, that's sufficient; to dream, to speak to them, to be silent among them, to think of indifferent things; but among them, everything is equal.
When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.
There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one's self a great name; life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work.
The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.
A man who knows how to make good bargains or finds his money increase in his coffers, thinks presently that he has a good deal of brains and is almost fit to be a statesman.
There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.
There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool. [Fr., Du meme fonds dont on neglige un homme de merite l'on sait encore admirer un sot.]
When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.
When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a VIzor and a Face.
The fool only is troublesome. A plan of sense perceives when he is agreeable or tiresome; he disappears the very minute before he would have been thought to have stayed too long.
A good saying often runs the risk of being thrown away when quoted as the speaker's own. [Fr., C'est souvent hasarder un bon mot et vouloir le perdre que de le donner pour sien.]
The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth. [Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.]
I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.
Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.
What is certain in death is somewhat softened by what is uncertain; it is an indefiniteness in the time, which holds a certain relation to the infinite, and what is called eternity.
The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists. [Fr., La faveur des princes n'exclut pas le merite, et ne le suppose pas aussi.]
I do not doubt but that genuine piety is the spring of peace of mind; it enables us to bear the sorrows of life, and lessens the pangs of death: the same cannot be said of hypocrisy.
We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.
Profane eloquence is transfered from the bar, where Le Maitre, Pucelle, and Fourcroy formerly practised it, and where it has become obsolete, to the Pulpit, where it is out of place.
How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!
There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.
Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature, is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or not artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.
Friendship can exist between persons of different sexes, without any coarse or sensual feelings; yet a woman always looks upon a man as a man, and so a man will look upon a woman as a woman.
Politeness does not always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, and gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man appear outwardly, as he should be within.
The finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.
As a man falls out of favour and his wealth declines, we discover for the first time the ridiculous aspects of his character, which were always there but which wealth and favour had concealed.
Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant; he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise.
It would be a kind of ferocity to reject indifferently all sorts of praise. One should be glad to have that which comes from good men who praise in sincerity things that are really praiseworthy.
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discloses to me His existence. [Fr., L'impossibilite ou je suis de prouver que Dieu n'est pas, me decouvre son existence.]
Let us not complain against men because otheir rudeness, their ingratitude, their injustice, their arrogance, their love oself, their forgetfulness oothers. They are so made. Such is their nature.
False glory is the rock of vanity; it seduces men to affect esteem by things which they indeed possess, but which are frivolous, and which for a man to value himself on would be a scandalous error.
The most accomplished literary work would be reduced to nothing by carping criticism, if the author would listen to all critics and allow every one to erase the passage which pleases him the least.
It is more or less rude to scorn indiscriminately all kinds of praise; we ought to be proud of that which comes from honest men, who praise sincerely those things in us which are really commendable.
The most important things must be said simply, for they are spoiled by bombast; whereas trivial things must be described grandly, for they are supported only by aptness of expression, tone and manner.