Luc de Clapiers's Quotes

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

The conscience of the dying belies their life.

The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.

The idle always have a mind to do something.

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

The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.

Those who can bear all can dare all.

To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.

To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die.

To possess taste, one must have some soul.

Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.

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

Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.

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

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.

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

Patience is the art of hoping.

All grand thoughts come from the heart.

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.

One promises much, to avoid giving little.

Great thoughts come from the heart.

The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little.

The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.

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