Luc de Clapiers Quotes

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves.

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

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

You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

Action makes more fortune than caution.

Courage is adversity's lamp.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

All grand thoughts come from the heart.

The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.

Emotions have taught mankind to reason.

Patience is the art of hoping.

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.

It is not in everyone's power to secure wealth, office, or honors; but everyone may be good, generous, and wise.

Those who can bear all can dare all.

One can not be just if one is not humane.

The lazy are always wanting to do something.

Peace renders nations happier and men weaker.

Give help rather than advice.

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.

I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.

It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

We should expect the best and the worst from mankind as from the weather.

More are taken in by hope than by cunning.

Consciousness of our powers augments them.

The maxims of men reveal their characters.

When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.

We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.

The conscience of the dying belies their life.

Indolence is the sleep of the mind.

The usual pretext of those who make others unhappy is that they do it for their own good.

Prosperity makes few friends.

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.

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

Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.

Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.

Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.

Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.

Consciousness of our strength increases it.

The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers.

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.

All that is unfair, offends us if it's not beneficial for us

He who knows how to suffer everything can dare everything.

The mind is the soul's eye, not its source of power. That lies in the heart, in other words, in the passions.

You must maintain strength of body in order to preserve strength of mind.