Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
There is as much wisdom in soliciting good counsel as in giving it. The most sensible people are not reluctant to consider the feelings of other people; and to know how to submit to the wise guidance of others is a kind of wisdom in itself.Collection: Wise
There is a certain hidden mediocrity in those who are stationed above us in life, an ability to take liberties in their pursuit of pleasures and diversions, without injuring the honor and respect we owe to them.Collection: Life
We are more put off by people who parade their dignity than by people who show off their wardrobes. When people have to trick themselves out to gain attention, it is a sure sign that they are unworthy of it. If we want to make ourselves worthy, we can do so only by the innate eminence conferred by virtue. We hold great people in esteem more for the qualities of their soul than for the qualities of their fortune.Collection: People
It is better that great peoples should seek out glory, or even vanity, in their deeds, than that they should remain indifferent . For even if they are not incited to act upon virtuous principles, at least there is the saving grace that they will do things they might not have done had not vanity prompted their actions.Collection: Vanity
Self-love is almost always the ruling principle of our friendships. It makes us avoid all our obligations in unprofitable situations, and even causes us to forget our hostility towards our enemies when they become powerful enough to help us achieve fame or fortune.Collection: Love
Self-love is even deceived by self-love, because by looking out for our own interests and disregarding those of other people, we lose the advantage that comes with the exchange of favors.Collection: Love Is
Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.Collection: People
It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.Collection: Business
The foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.Collection: Laughter
The conversation of those who like to lord it over us is very disagreeable. But we should always be ready to graciously acknowledge the truth, no matter in what guise it comes to us.Collection: Truth
We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.Collection: Understanding
Love is always master everywhere. It shapes the soul, the heart, and the mind wherever it exists. What matters is not the amount of love, but simply its existence in the mind and heart where it resides. And it truly appears that love is to the soul of the lover as the soul itself is to the body which it animates.Collection: Heart
It is a strength of character to acknowledge our failings and our strong points, and it is a weakness of character not to remain in harmony with both the good and the bad that is within us.Collection: Strength
There is little advantage in pleasing ourselves when we please no one else, for our great self-love is often chastised by the scorn of others.Collection: Love
Everyone is so caught up in his own passions and interests that he always wants to talk about them without getting involved in the passions and interests of those to whom he speaks, although his listeners have the same need for others to listen to and help them.Collection: Passion
There is a certain manner of self-absorption in speaking that always renders the speaker disagreeable. For it is as great a folly to listen only to ourselves while we are carrying on a conversation with others as it is to talk to ourselves while we are alone.Collection: Self
Self-love makes us deceive ourselves in almost all matters, to censure others, and to blame them for the same faults that we do not correct in ourselves; we do this either because we are unaware of the evil that exists within us, or because we always see our own evil disguised as a good.Collection: Love
There is always enough self-love hidden beneath the greatest devoutness to set limits on charity.Collection: Love
All the great amusements are dangerous for the Christian life.Collection: Christian
We often value the exterior and superficial aspect of things more than their inner reality. Bad manners taint everything even justice and reason. The 'how' of things matters most, and even the most disagreeable matters can be sweetened and gilded over with the proper appearance. Such is the bias and the weakness of the human mind.Collection: Reality
There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.Collection: Ignorance
Good results are sometimes owing to a failure of judgment, because the faculty of judgment often hinders us from undertaking many things which would succeed if carried through without thinking.Collection: Failure
Criticism should awaken our attention, not inflame our anger. We should listen to, and not flee from, those who contradict us. Truth should be our cause, no matter in what manner it comes to us.Collection: Listening
Ignorance makes for weakness and fear; knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination.Collection: Fear
Good fortune almost always makes some change in a man's behavior - in his manner of speaking and acting. It is a great weakness to want to bedeck oneself in qualities which are not his own. If he esteemed virtue above all other things, neither the favors of fortune nor the advantages of position would change a man's face or heart.Collection: Heart