Luc de Clapiers
You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.Collection: Strength
The art of pleasing is the art of deception.Collection: Art
Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.Collection: Brainy
Patience is the art of hoping.Collection: Patience
Great thoughts come from the heart.Collection: Love
If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.Collection: Society
Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.Collection: Failure
There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.Collection: Fear
The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.Collection: Best
The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.Collection: Success
The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.
Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.
Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die.
Obscurity is the realm of error.
The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.
The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.
The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little.
Indolence is the sleep of the mind.
One can not be just if one is not humane.
The maxims of men reveal their characters.
The conscience of the dying belies their life.
When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.
Prosperity makes few friends.
We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.
Emotions have taught mankind to reason.
Those who can bear all can dare all.
To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
The idle always have a mind to do something.
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 law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.
One promises much, to avoid giving little.
All grand thoughts come from the heart.
You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.
Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.
To possess taste, one must have some soul.
The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.
Generosity gives assistance, rather than advice.Collection: Generosity
Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.Collection: Ignorance
The wicked are always surprised to find that the good can be clever.Collection: Clever
None are more liable to mistakes than those who act only on second thoughts.Collection: Mistake
We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.Collection: Humility
Give help rather than advice.Collection: Helping Others
All that is unfair, offends us if it's not beneficial for usCollection: Clever
Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice.Collection: Destiny
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.Collection: Doors
If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.Collection: Teacher