Luc de Clapiers Vauvenargues (1715 – 1747)
French moralist, essayist, and miscellaneous writer.
If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulses of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavor is to subdue our children’s spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.
Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice.
Some are born to invent, others to embellish; but the gilder attracts more attention than the architect.
Reason and emotion counsel and supplement each other. Whoever heeds only the one, and puts aside the other, recklessly deprives himself of a portion of the aid granted us for the regulation of our conduct.
Superficial knowledge … is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.
It is proof of a narrow mind when things worthy of esteem are distinguished from things worthy of love. Great minds naturally love whatever is worthy of their esteem.
It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.
If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.
Great men in teaching weak men to reflect have set them on the road to error.
Men dissimulate their dearest, most constant, and most virtuous inclination from weakness and a fear of being condemned.
Great men are sometimes so even in small things.
You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.
Children are … encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.
He who knows how to suffer everything can risk everything.
As it is natural to believe many things without proof, so, despite all proof, is it natural to disbelieve others.
The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.
Those who fear men love the laws.
It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves.
Les grandes pensées viennent du coeur.
It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of the right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.