Quotes by Marquis Vauvenargues

• You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.
• The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.
• The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.
• There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.
• Those who can bear all can dare all.
• To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
• To possess taste, one must have some soul.
• We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
• When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
• Emotions have taught mankind to reason.
• Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
• You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time.
• The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.
• Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.
• Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
• All grand thoughts come from the heart.
• Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.
• Great thoughts always come from the heart.
• If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.
• The idle always have a mind to do something.
• 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.
• One promises much, to avoid giving little.
• Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.
• The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
• The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.
• The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.
• Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.