Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A good memory is needed once we have lied. [Fr., Il faut bonne memoire apres qu'on a menti.]
We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.
It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice.
Brave men are brave from the very first. [Fr., Les hommes valeureux le sont au premier coup.]
Ambition displeases when it has been sated ... having reached the peak, it aspires to descend.
All great virtues become great men. [Fr., Toutes grandes vertus conviennent aux grands hommes.]
The universe has no prince or king that it [Rome] would consider equal to its humblest citizen.
Be it only for a day, it is still a glory without equal to be master of the world just that day.
Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare. [Lat., Devine, si tu peux, et choisis, si tu l'oses.]
He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty.
All evils are equal when they are extreme. [Fr., Et tous maux sont pareils alors qu'ils sont extremes.]
By speaking of our misfortunes we often relieve them. [Fr., A raconter ses maux souvent on les soulage.]
Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.
It is a law, of the gods which is never broken, to sell somewhat dearly the great benefits which they confer on us.
Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying.
My reason, it's true, controls my feelings, but whatever its authority, it doesn't rule them so much as tyrannize them.
An example is often a deceptive mirror, and the order of destiny, so troubling to our thoughts, is not always found written in things past
An example is often a deceptive mirror, and the order of destiny, so troubling to our thoughts, is not always found written in things past.
Clemency is the surest proof of a true monarch. [Fr., La clemence est la plus belle marque Qui fasse a l'univers connaitre un vrai monqrque.]
He should be envied Who when his strength is spent lays down his life. Old age reserves a melancholy fate For noble souls before their life is done.
Liberty may be of no more use Than stirring up the flame of civil wars; Then, by disorder fatal to the world, One wants no king, the other wants no equal.
These flattering mirrors reflect imperfectly what is within; the countenance is often a gay deceiver. What defects of mind lie hidden under its beauty! What fair exteriors conceal base souls!
He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases! [Lat., Qui se laisse outrager, merite qu'on l'outrage Et l'audace impunie enfle trop un courage.]
There are secret ties, there are sympathies, by the sweet relationship of which souls that are well matched attach themselves to each other, and are affected by I know not what, which cannot be explained
Just as We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness. So too we never taste sadness completely, as things could always be worse in some way and for this we can be grateful.
When a woman has the gift of silence she possesses a quality above the vulgar. It is a gift of Heaven seldom bestowed; without a little miracle it cannot be accomplished; and Nature suffers violence when Heaven puts a woman in the humor of observing silence.
Ambition becomes displeasing when it is once satiated; there is a reaction; and as our spirit, till our last sigh, is always aiming toward some object, it falls back on itself, having nothing else on which to rest; and having reached the summit, it longs to descend.
Your Christians, whom one persecutes in vain, have something in them that surpasses the human. They lead a life of such innocence,that the heavens owe them some recognition: that they arise the stronger the more they are beaten down is hardly the result of common virtues.