Bernard Mandeville Quotes

#1. People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it.

Bernard De Mandeville

#2. My mother implanted in me as a young girl ... you can either be an actor in your own life, or a reactor in somebody else's.

Hillary Clinton

#3. The instability in the region is not a result of Israel and the Palestinians. That was never the cause of this instability. Instead, the disfunctionality of many of these societies that have failed to modernize.

Benjamin Netanyahu

#4. Just as I lay back, she sat up. I sat up, and she flopped back down. Awkward. That was my every move when it came to her.
Now we were both lying down, staring up at the blue sky.

Kami Garcia

#5. This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir'd by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.

Bernard De Mandeville

#6. No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.

Bernard De Mandeville

#7. You have to follow where the poem leads. And it will surprise you. It will say things you didn't expect to say. And you look at the poem and you realize, 'That is truly what I felt.' That is truly what I saw.

Philip Levine

#8. Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our Desires, and the fewer things a Man wishes for, the more easily his Necessities may be supply'd.

Bernard De Mandeville

#9. The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#10. When Men fly from danger, it is natural for them to run farther than they need.

Bernard Mandeville

#11. Pain ... after you've lived with it long enough, isn't pain anymore. It's something else.

Samuel R. Delany

#12. Everybody looks at his clothes to see what he's wearing.

Tim Hardaway

#13. There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring em all up to Latin and Greek or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifery.

Bernard De Mandeville

#14. If Courtezans and Strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much Rigour as some silly People would have it, what Locks or Bars would be sufficient to preserve the Honour of our Wives and Daughters?

Bernard De Mandeville

#15. There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is the labor of the poor and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from.

Bernard De Mandeville

#16. For forty years, I've worn the same Azzaro Uomo fragrance.

Brunello Cucinelli

#17. The first Rudiments of Morality, broach'd by skilful Politicians, to render Men useful to each other as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived that the Ambitious might reap the more Benefit from, and govern vast Numbers of them with the greater Ease and Security.

Bernard De Mandeville

#18. There is not a day that we do not have a chance to choose between the devil's clever promises and God's sure Word.

Billy Graham

#19. Capitalism is the greatest poverty-fighting machine in the history of mankind, and I'm proud of the role I've played in it,

Bruce Rauner

#20. The only thing of weight that can be said against modern honor is that it is directly opposite to religion. The one bids you bear injuries with patience, the other tells you if you don't resent them, you are not fit to live.

Bernard De Mandeville

#21. No matter what measures are taken, doctors will sometimes falter, and it isn't reasonable to ask that we achieve perfection. What is reasonable is to ask that we never cease to aim for it.

Atul Gawande

#22. A couple of people thought I looked familiar, but it was like, No.

Pras Michel

#23. Pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together,

Bernard De Mandeville

#24. Those who get their living by their daily labor ... have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is a prudence to relieve, but folly to cure.

Bernard De Mandeville

#25. We seldom call anybody lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service.

Bernard De Mandeville

#26. The current tax code is a daily mugging.

Ronald Reagan

#27. I don't believe that there is a human creature in his senses, arrived to maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by this passion (sc. envy) in good earnest; yet I never met with any one who dared own he was guilty of it but in jest.

Bernard De Mandeville

#28. I neither look up to the rich or down to the poor.

Sterling W. Sill

#29. Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from that motive.

Bernard De Mandeville