Luc De Clapiers Quotes
Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.
As it is natural to believe many things without proof, so, despite all proof, is it natural to disbelieve others.
Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.
Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.
If passion sometimes counsels greater boldness than does reflection, it gives more strength to execute it.
Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.
We must not be timid from a fear of committing faults: the greatest fault of all is to deprive oneself of experience.
Men crowd into honorable careers without other vocation than their vanity, or at best their love of fame.
A man can hardly be said to have made a fortune if he does not know how to enjoy it.
To withdraw ourselves from the law of the strong, we have found ourselves obliged to submit to justice. Justice or might, we must choose between these two masters.
Men dissimulate their dearest, most constant, and most virtuous inclination from weakness and a fear of being condemned.
Is it against justice or reason to love ourselves? And why is self-love always a vice?
We are very wrong to think that some fault or other can exclude virtue, or to consider the alliance of good and evil as a monstrosity or an enigma.
Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.
Hope animates the wise, and lures the presumptuous and indolent who repose inconsiderately on her promises.
We can console ourselves for not having great talents as we console ourselves for not having great places. We can be above both in our hearts.
Men despise great projects when they do not feel themselves capable of great successes.
If it is true that vice can never be done away with, the science of government consists of making it contribute to the public good.
Persevere in the fight, struggle on, do not let go, think magnanimously of man and life, for man is good and life is affluent and fruitful.
The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.
It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves.
A man who love only himself and his pleasures is vain, presumptuous, and wicked even from principle.
The falsest of all philosophies is that which, under the pretext of delivering men from the embarrassment of their passions, counsels idleness and the abandonment and neglect of themselves.
