Quotes by Jean Fontaine

• Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
• We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.
• We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
• We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.
• There is nothing useless to men of sense.
• There is no road of flowers leading to glory.
• The strongest passion is fear.
• The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
• Rather suffer than die is man's motto.
• A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better.
• A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
• A hungry stomach cannot hear.
• The argument of the strongest is always the best.
• Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.
• It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
• It is impossible to please all the world and one's father.
• It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
• Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.
• Luck's always to blame.
• Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
• In short, Luck's always to blame.
• Never sell the bear's skin before one has killed the beast.
• Patience and time do more than strength or passion.
• Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable.
• One often has need of one, inferior to himself.
• One returns to the place one came from.
• People must help one another; it is nature's law.
• Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.
• People who make no noise are dangerous.
• Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.
• Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
• I bend and do not break.
• Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
• Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
• Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
• But the shortest works are always the best.
• By the work one knows the workman.
• Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
• Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him.
• Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.
• Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats: neither fear nor shame can cure them.
• Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.
• Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which increases with the setting sun of life.
• Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.