Luc de Clapiers Vauvenargues (1715 – 1747)
French moralist, essayist, and miscellaneous writer.
Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.
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.
Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice.
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.
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.
Some are born to invent, others to embellish; but the gilder attracts more attention than the architect.
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 is good to be firm by temperament and pliant by reflection.
Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.
As soon as an opinion becomes common it is sufficient reason for men to abandon it and to uphold the opposite opinion until that in its turn grows old, and they require to distinguish themselves by other things. Thus if they attain their goal in some art or science, we must expect them soon to cast it aside to acquire some fresh fame, and this is partly the reason why the most splendid ages degenerate so quickly, and, scarcely emerged from barbarism, plunge into it again.
Men are not to be judged by what they do not know, but by what they know, and by the manner in which they know it.
La clémence vaut mieux que la justice.
La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité.
Neither the gifts nor the blows of fortune equal those of nature.
The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.
The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.
La foi est la consolation des misérables et la terreur des heureux.
You people suffer less from their faults than from the prudence of the old.
Emotion has taught mankind to reason.
Are we surprised if a sick man cannot walk, or keep awake, or stand upright? Would it not be more surprising if he was the same man as when he was well? If we have a headache, or have slept badly, we are excused for telling incapable of work, and yet no one suspects us of always being lazy. Shall we deny a dying man the privilege we grant a man with a headache? And dare we assert that the man who lacks courage in his last agony never possessed virtue when he was well.