Top 100 Luc De Clapiers Quotes
#1. He who seeks fame by the practice of virtue asks only for what he deserves.
Luc De Clapiers
#6. Hope animates the wise, and lures the presumptuous and indolent who repose inconsiderately on her promises.
Luc De Clapiers
#7. Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.
Luc De Clapiers
#8. If anyone accuses me of contradicting myself, I shall reply; I have been wrong once or more often, however I do not aspire to be always wrong.
Luc De Clapiers
#9. None are more liable to mistakes than those who act only on second thoughts.
Luc De Clapiers
#10. Our opinion of others is not so variable as our opinion of ourselves.
Luc De Clapiers
#11. We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.
Luc De Clapiers
#12. Reason and emotion counsel and supplement each other. Whoever heeds only the one, and puts aside the other, recklessly deprives himself of a portion of the aid granted us for the regulation of our conduct.
Luc De Clapiers
#13. Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.
Luc De Clapiers
#14. To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die.
Luc De Clapiers
#15. We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design.
Luc De Clapiers
#18. 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.
Luc De Clapiers
#19. Few people are modest enough to be estimated at their true worth.
Luc De Clapiers
#20. Whoever has seen the masked at a ball dance amicably together, and take hold of hands without knowing each other, leaving the next moment to meet no more, can form an idea of the world.
Luc De Clapiers
#21. Hope is the only good thing that disillusion respects.
Luc De Clapiers
#22. It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves.
Luc De Clapiers
#23. The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little.
Luc De Clapiers
#24. Some are born to invent, others to embellish; but the gilder attracts more attention than the architect.
Luc De Clapiers
#25. The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat.
Luc De Clapiers
#26. If it is true that vice can never be done away with, the science of government consists of making it contribute to the public good.
Luc De Clapiers
#28. There does not exist a man sufficiently intelligent never to be tiresome.
Luc De Clapiers
#29. Mediocre men sometimes fear great office, and when they do not aim at it, or when they refuse it, all that is to be concluded is that they are aware of their mediocrity.
Luc De Clapiers
#30. If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural.
Luc De Clapiers
#32. The counsels of old age give light without heat, like the sun in winter.
Luc De Clapiers
#33. The mind is the soul's eye, not its source of power. That lies in the heart, in other words, in the passions.
Luc De Clapiers
#34. We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.
Luc De Clapiers
#37. The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains.
Luc De Clapiers
#38. Servitude degrades people to such a point that they come to like it.
Luc De Clapiers
#41. Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love.
Luc De Clapiers
#43. We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
Luc De Clapiers
#44. A man who love only himself and his pleasures is vain, presumptuous, and wicked even from principle.
Luc De Clapiers
#45. In order to protect himself from force, man was obliged to submit to justice. Justice or force: he was compelled to choose between the two masters, so little are we made to be independent.
Luc De Clapiers
#46. Learn to overrule minor interest in favor of great ones, and generously to do all the good the heart prompts; a man is never injured by acting virtuously.
Luc De Clapiers
#47. No one is more liable to make mistakes than the man who acts only on reflection.
Luc De Clapiers
#49. Great men undertake great things because they are great; fools, because they think them easy.
Luc De Clapiers
#51. The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.
Luc De Clapiers
#56. The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.
Luc De Clapiers
#57. We are less hurt by the contempt of fools than by the lukewarm approval of men of intelligence.
Luc De Clapiers
#58. Excessive distrust is not less hurtfJul than its opposite. Most men become useless to him who is unwilling to risk being deceived.
Luc De Clapiers
#59. Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
Luc De Clapiers
#60. All that is unfair, offends us if it's not beneficial for us
Luc De Clapiers
#63. Great men in teaching weak men to reflect have set them on the road to error.
Luc De Clapiers
#65. Servitude debases men to the point where they end up liking it.
Luc De Clapiers
#66. The usual pretext of those who make others unhappy is that they do it for their own good.
Luc De Clapiers
#67. The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.
Luc De Clapiers
#68. Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives.
Luc De Clapiers
#69. To withdraw ourselves from the law of the strong, we have found ourselves obliged to submit to justice. Justice or might, we must choose between these two masters.
Luc De Clapiers
#70. Newton, Pascal, Bossuet, Racine, F?nelon
that is to say, some of the most enlightened men on earth, in the most philosophical of all ages
have been believers in Jesus Christ; and the great Cond?, when dying, repeated these noble words, "Yes, I shall see God as He is, face to face!".
Luc De Clapiers
#71. As a house implies a builder, and a garment a weaver, and a door a carpenter, so does the existence of the Universe imply a Creator.
Luc De Clapiers
#72. You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.
Luc De Clapiers
#73. The falsest of all philosophies is that which, under the pretext of delivering men from the embarrassment of their passions, counsels idleness and the abandonment and neglect of themselves.
Luc De Clapiers
#74. Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.
Luc De Clapiers
#75. A liar is a man who does now know how to deceive, a flatterer one who only deceives fools: he who knows how to make skilful use of the truth, and understands its eloquence, can alone pride himself in cleverness.
Luc De Clapiers
#76. 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.
Luc De Clapiers
#77. It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of the right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.
Luc De Clapiers
#78. As it is natural to believe many things without proof, so, despite all proof, is it natural to disbelieve others.
Luc De Clapiers
#80. Our actions are neither so good nor so evil as our impulses.
Luc De Clapiers
#81. Despair exaggerates not only our misery but also our weakness.
Luc De Clapiers
#82. When an idea is not robust enough to stand expression in simple terms, it is a sign that it should be rejected.
Luc De Clapiers
#85. Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits.
Luc De Clapiers
#86. The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.
Luc De Clapiers
#87. The light of the dawn is not so sweet as the first glimpses of fame.
Luc De Clapiers
#88. If passion sometimes counsels greater boldness than does reflection, it gives more strength to execute it.
Luc De Clapiers
#89. It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed but uniformity.
Luc De Clapiers
#91. When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
Luc De Clapiers
#93. It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.
Luc De Clapiers
#94. Despair puts the last touch not only to our misery but also to our weakness.
Luc De Clapiers
#98. The character of false wit is that of appearing to depend only upon reason.
Luc De Clapiers
#99. If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.
Luc De Clapiers
#100. Men are not to be judged by what they do not know, but by what they know, and by the manner in which they know it.
Luc De Clapiers
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