Philibert Joseph Roux Quotes

God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home.

When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths.

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

Solitude vivifies, isolation kills.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite impressions.

There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them.

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

Nothing vivifies, and nothing kills, like the emotions.

I look at what I have not and think myself unhappy; others look at what I have and think me happy.

Conscientious men are, almost everywhere, less encouraged than tolerated.

There are people who laugh to show their fine teeth; and there are those who cry to show their good hearts.

Persons of delicate taste endure stupid criticism better than they do stupid praise.

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

When unhappy, one doubts everything when happy one doubts nothing.

In youth one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears

The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.

What is slander? A verdict of "guilty" pronounced in the absence of the accused, with closed doors, without defence or appeal, by an interested and prejudiced judge.

Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse.

Lofty mountains are full of springs; great hearts are full of tears.

Friendship admits of difference of character, as love does that of sex.

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.

The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.

The orator is the mouth (os) of a nation.

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.

Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.

Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving.

Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know.

Present unhappiness is selfish; past sorrow is compassionate.

Since unhappiness excites interest, many, in order to render themselves interesting, feign unhappiness.

Success causes us to be more praised than known.

We distrust our heart too much, and our head not enough.

Friendship is the ideal; friends are the reality; reality always remains far apart from the ideal.

Everything that is exquisite hides itself.

Great dejection often follows great enthusiasm.

Interest, ambition, fortune, time, temper, love, all kill friendship.

Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.

We are more conscious that a person is in the wrong when the wrong concerns ourselves.

Like those statues which must be made larger than "nature" in order that, viewed from below, or from a distance, they may appear to be of the "natural" size, certain truths must be "strained" in order that the public may form a just idea of them.

A face which is always serene possesses a mysterious and powerful attraction: sad hearts come to it as to the sun to warm themselves again.

That which we know is but little; that which we have a presentiment of is immense; it is in this direction that the poet outruns the learned man.

It is impossible to be just if one is not generous.

We often experience more regret over the part we have left, than pleasure over the part we have preferred.

The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

To love is to choose.

Great souls are harmonious.

Philosophers call God the great unknown The great misknown is more like it!

The chief cause of our misery is less the violence of our passions than the feebleness of our virtues.

At first we hope too much and later on, not enough.

The man abandoned by his friends, one after another, without just cause, will acquire, the reputation of being hard to please, changeable, ungrateful, unsociable.