Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Emotions have taught mankind to reason.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Great thoughts always come from the heart.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
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.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
One promises much, to avoid giving little.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The idle always have a mind to do something.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Those who can bear all can dare all.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
To possess taste, one must have some soul.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.
– Marquis de Vauvenargues
It is not true that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality. Its soverign law is subordination and dependence.