Luc de Clapiers Vauvenargues (1715 – 1747)
French moralist, essayist, and miscellaneous writer.
If a man is endowed with a noble and courageous soul, if he is painstaking, proud, ambitious, without meanness, of a profound a deep-seated intelligence, I dare assert that he lacks nothing to be neglected by the great and men in high office, who fear, more than other men, those whom they cannot dominate.
Qui sait tout souffrir peut tout oser.
La patience est l’art d’espérer.
If passion sometimes counsels greater boldness than does reflection, it gives more strength to execute it.
Magnanimity owes no account to prudence of its motives.
Pour exécuter de grandes choses, il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais mourir.
Il est faux que l’égalité soit une loi de la nature. La nature n’a rien fait d’égal; la loi souveraine est la subordination et la dépendance.
Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.
With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature.
Lazy people are always looking for something to do.
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.
Les grandes pensées viennent du coeur.
It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves.
Those who fear men love the laws.
The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.
As it is natural to believe many things without proof, so, despite all proof, is it natural to disbelieve others.
He who knows how to suffer everything can risk everything.
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.
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.
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.