Antoine Rivarol Quotes

#1. It is, no doubt, an immense advantage to have done nothing, but one should not abuse it.

Antoine Rivarol

#2. Mutability is written upon all things.

Antoine Rivarol

#3. There are men who gain from their wealth only the fear of losing it.

Antoine Rivarol

#4. The mischief of children is seldom actuated by malice; that of grown-up people always is.

Antoine Rivarol

#5. Tenderness is the infancy of love.

Antoine Rivarol

#6. Generally speaking, there is more wit than talent in the world. Society swarms with witty people who lack talent.

Antoine Rivarol

#7. The world is governed by love,
self-love.

Antoine Rivarol

#8. The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy.

Antoine Rivarol

#9. Vices are often habits rather than passions.

Antoine Rivarol

#10. Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

Antoine Rivarol

#11. Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.

Antoine Rivarol

#12. Opinions, theories, and systems pass by turns over the grindstone of time, which at first gives them brilliancy and sharpness, but finally wears them out.

Antoine Rivarol

#13. Memory always obeys the commands of the heart.

Antoine Rivarol

#14. There are some women who are flirts upon principle; they consider it their duty to make themselves as pleasing as possible to every one.

Antoine Rivarol

#15. There is even the dignity of vice.

Antoine Rivarol

#16. Women read each other at a single glance.

Antoine Rivarol

#17. In general, indulgence for those we know is rarer than pity for those we know not.

Antoine Rivarol

#18. Wrong is wrong; no fallacy can hide it, no subterfuge cover it so shrewdly but that the All-Seeing One will discover and punish it.

Antoine Rivarol

#19. If poverty makes man groan, he yawns in opulence. When fortune exempts us from labor, nature overwhelms us with time.

Antoine Rivarol

#20. To be ungrateful is to be unnatural. The head may be thus guilty, not the heart.

Antoine Rivarol

#21. To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.

Antoine Rivarol

#22. Brave men do not boast nor bluster. Deeds, not words, speak for such.

Antoine Rivarol

#23. The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.

Antoine Rivarol

#24. The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.

Antoine Rivarol

#25. Extremes produce reaction. Beware that our boasted civilization does not lapse into barbarism.

Antoine Rivarol

#26. Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Antoine Rivarol

#27. It is not he who searches for praise who finds it.

Antoine Rivarol

#28. Silence never yet betrayed any one!

Antoine Rivarol

#29. Cats don't caress us-they caress themselves on us.

Antoine Rivarol

#30. The cunning tempter, by avoiding the grossness of vice, often silences objections.

Antoine Rivarol

#31. It has been very truly said that the mob has many heads, but no brains.

Antoine Rivarol

#32. Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

Antoine Rivarol

#33. A fool may have his coat embroidered with gold, but it is a fool's coat still.

Antoine Rivarol

#34. Poverty treads close upon the heels of great and unexpected wealth.

Antoine Rivarol

#35. It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.

Antoine Rivarol

#36. The despotism of will in ideas is styled plan, project, character, obstinacy; its despotism in desires is called passion.

Antoine Rivarol

#37. The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.

Antoine Rivarol

#38. Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice.

Antoine Rivarol

#39. Oblivion is the rule and fame the exception, of humanity.

Antoine Rivarol

#40. It is a notable circumstance that mothers who are themselves open to severe comments as to their, moral character, are generally most solicitous as to the virtuous behavior of their daughters.

Antoine Rivarol

#41. That which happens to the soil when it ceases to be cultivated by the social man happens to man himself when he foolishly forsakes society for solitude; the brambles grow up in his desert heart.

Antoine Rivarol

#42. Youth is not the era of wisdom; let us therefore have due consideration.

Antoine Rivarol

#43. The woman who too easily and ardently yielded her devotion will find that its vitality, like a bright fire, soon consumes itself.

Antoine Rivarol

#44. The methods that help a man acquire a fortune are the very ones that keep him from enjoying it.

Antoine Rivarol

#45. There is nothing so unready as readiness of wit.

Antoine Rivarol

#46. Obtuseness is sometimes a virtue.

Antoine Rivarol

#47. Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way.

Antoine Rivarol

#48. Familiarity is the root of the closest friendships, as well as the interests hatreds.

Antoine Rivarol

#49. Indolence and stupidity are first cousins.

Antoine Rivarol

#50. Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.

Antoine Rivarol

#51. History is only time furnished with dates and rich with events.

Antoine Rivarol

#52. What isn't clear, isn't French.

Antoine De Rivarol