Quotes by Luc de Vauvenargues

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We despise grand plans when we are incapable of success.

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Pizma cannot hide. He accuses and judges without evidence, he magnifies faults, he considers the smallest faults enormous; his speech is full of the gall of exaggeration and reproach. He obstinately and furiously obstinates against obvious merit. She is blind, angry, reckless and brutal.

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Those who always slander, seldom harm; they mean more harm than they can do.

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An honest man may be indignant at those whom he considers undeserving of the situation to which they have arrived: but he is unable to envy them.

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If you want to say big things, first learn never to say untrue things.

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Despair is the greatest of our wanderings.

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The hatred of the weak is less dangerous than their friendship.

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There is no offense that we would not forgive by avenging it.

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There is no man who, reading a work in prose, does not think: "I will try to write it better."

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Novelty is the only indisputable sign of genius.

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To have a quick mind is a small advantage, if your judgment is not fair: the perfecting of watches consists not in going fast, but in going right.

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Unanimously accepted views should not be ridiculed - this irritates and in no way discourages the defenders of these views.

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It is impossible to have no positive quality, just as it is impossible to have no defect.

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Hope is the most useful and the most harmful of all the blessings of life.

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The thought of death is treacherous: being captivated by this thought, we forget to live.

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Many bold ideas were not translated into life because of their too timid realization.

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People like even those praises in the seriousness of which they themselves do not believe.

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Love is stronger than ambition: you can love a woman even when she hates you.

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Manners break more easily than they heal.

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Images adorn the mind, feeling convinces it.

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The more clever a man is, the more prone he is to recklessness.

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Man does not value his fellowmen enough to recognize that others are capable of high office. To posthumously recognize the merits of someone who successfully coped with this function - that's all we are capable of.

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Reason is given to fly to the highest heights.

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Conceited people are poor diplomats: they cannot be silent.

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The coward swallows fewer insults than the ambitious.

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Only he who lives as if he were immortal is capable of great deeds. The more strong but contradictory passions a man possesses, the less he is able to excel in something.

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What remains in us from nature is more untamed and stronger than what we accumulate through study, experience, and reflection, for all art relaxes even as it corrects and perfects.

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The latest and most original book is the one that makes you love the old truths.

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The benefit of vice is always mixed with great harm.

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The changes required by the state usually occur independently of one's will.

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In venturing into something grand, you inevitably risk your reputation.

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Ambition is a sign of talent, courage of wisdom, passion of mind, and mind of knowledge, or vice versa, because chance and circumstances make any event either good or useful or harmful.

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Any passion that dominates man opens a direct way of access to it.

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Fools are always amazed that a talented person is able to defend his own interests.

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He who is able to endure all things, to him it is given to be bold in all things.

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How of little use is the best advice, if your own experience so seldom teaches you!

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I dare say openly: reason makes the philosopher, love of glory the hero, and virtue alone the sage.

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It takes less effort to become handy than it seems.

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There are fewer fools than you think: people just don't understand each other.

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If an aphorism has to be explained, it means that it has not succeeded.

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If some innovation hardly takes root, it means that it is not necessary.

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There are people who talk about morality like some architects talk about houses: they put convenience first.

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Some insults are better to swallow in silence than to cover yourself with shame.

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The art of pleasing is the ability to deceive.

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However interested you may be in politics, you are unlikely to find more boring and tiresome reading than a treaty concluded between sovereigns.

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Great philosophers are geniuses in the field of reason.

"Our actions are neither as good nor as vicious as our desires."

"Great thoughts come directly from the heart."

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

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When our friends do us a service, we believe that they owe it to us in the name of friendship, and we do not think at all that they do not owe us friendship.

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The mind does not know the interests of the heart.

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Sometimes the most ridiculous and audacious desires brought about the extraordinary successes.

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You cannot be just if you are not humane.

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Patience is the art of hope.

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It is easy to criticize a writer, but difficult to appreciate.

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Laziness breeds more philosophers than contemplation.

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Trading is a school of deception.

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If we don't write because we think, we think in vain to write.

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We must have great resources in our minds and hearts to appreciate honesty even when it hurts us, or to be honest without our honesty being offensive. Few people have the backbone to bear it and tell the truth.

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Solitude is to the mind what diet is to the body.

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All men are born honest and die a liar.

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To accomplish great things, a man must live as if he never had to die.

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Great thoughts come from the heart.

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People's principles reveal their hearts.

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It's easy to complain, it's hard to appreciate.

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There is nothing that fear and hope cannot convince a man of.

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No one makes as many mistakes as those who only act judiciously.

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When we invite thoughts, they flee from us; when we want to drive them away, they invade us and keep our eyes open at night, against our will.

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Big jobs sometimes make even the smallest skills unnecessary.