J. Petit-Senn Quotes

True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher.

An angry woman is vindictive beyond measure, and hesitates at nothing in her bitterness.

The hatred we bear our enemies injures their happiness less than our own.

Every generous illusion of youth leaves a wrinkle as it departs. Experience is the successive disenchanting of the things of life; it is reason enriched with the heart's spoils.

Envy, like flame, blackens that which is above it, and which it cannot reach.

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.

It requires less character to discover the faults of others, than to tolerate them.

Do you know a young and beautiful woman who is not ready to flirt-just a little?

Many fortunes, like rivers, have a pure source, but grow muddy as they grow large.

Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue in the eyes of bigots.

Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant.

What we gain by experience is not worth that we lose in illusion

The happiness of the tender heart is increased by what it can take away from the wretchedness of others.

Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud.

There are some errors so sweet that we repent them only to bring them to memory.

The weak-minded man is the slave of his vices and the dupe of his virtues.

There is certainly no beauty on earth which exceeds the natural loveliness of woman.

Doubt springs from the mind; faith is the daughter of the soul.

In all that surrounds him the egotist sees only the frame of his own portrait.

Religion is the hospital of the souls that the world has wounded.

That prudery which survives youth and beauty resembles a scarecrow left in the fields after harvest.

The virtuous woman flees from danger; she trusts more to her prudence in shunning it than in her strength to overcome it.

When our friends are alive, we see the good qualities they lack; dead, we remember only those they possessed.

It is almost impossible to find those who admire us entirely lacking in taste.

In a better world we will find our young years and our old friends.

None despise fame more heartily than those who have no possible claim to it.

No woman dares express all she thinks.

There is a proverb in the South that a woman laughs when she can, and weeps when she pleases.

In love we are not only liable to betray ourselves, but also the secrets of others.

We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give.

It is not what we have but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance.

A pedant holds more to instruct us with what he knows, than of what we are ignorant.

The wonderful fortune of some writers deludes and leads to misery a great number of young people.

Experience unveils too late the snares laid for youth; it is the white frost which discovers the spider's web when the flies are no longer there to be caught.

The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.

Perfect servants would be the worst of all for certain masters, whose happiness consists in finding fault with them.

We are told to walk noiselessly through the world, that we may waken neither hatred, nor envy; but, alas! what can we do when they never sleep!

To protect ourselves against the storms of passion, marriage with a woman is a harbor in the tempest; but with a bad woman it is a tempest in the harbor.

Of all trifles, titles are the lightest.

We find ourselves less witty in remembering what we have said than in dreaming of what we would have said.

Without big words, how could many people say small things?

It is more pitiable once to have been rich than not to be rich now.

The politics of courtiers resemble their shadows; they cringe and turn with the sun of the day.

The most exacting jailer is our own conscience.

Conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others.

It is easy to be virtuous in prospective.

There are wounds of self-love which one does not confess to one's dearest friends.

Genius, like a torch, shines less in the broad daylight of the present than in the night of the past.

Those virtues which cost us dear prove that we love God; those which are easy to us prove that He loves us.

Another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat.