Antoine de Rivarol (1753–1801) was a Royalist French writer, epigrammatist, and translator who lived during the Revolutionary era. A journalist, commentator, and epigrammatist, he belonged to a faction of aristocrats who were most valiantly conservative.
Born in Bagnols, Languedoc, Rivarol went to Paris in 1780. He embraced the aristocratic form ‘Comte de’ and worked his way into fashionable society, where he found much material for his sardonic writings. In 1788, he set the whole city laughing at the touches of sarcasm in his Petit Almanach de nos grands hommes pour 1788 (‘Little Almanac of Our Great Men.’)
When the Revolution materialized the press’s significance, Rivarol took up arms on the Royalist side and wrote in the Journal politique of Antoine Sabatier de Castres and the Actes des Apdtres of Jean Gabriel Peltier. He emigrated in 1792 and, supported by Royalist pensions, wrote pamphlets in Brussels, London, Hamburg, and Berlin.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Antoine de Rivarol
Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Gold
Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Reason
Mind is the partial side of man; the heart is everything.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Heart
Vices are often habits rather than passions.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Vice
The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose, for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Modesty
Generally speaking, there is more wit than talent in the world. Society swarms with witty people who lack talent.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Wit
It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Mystery
The personal pronoun “I,” might well be the coat of arms of some individuals.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Egotism
Memory always obeys the commands of the heart.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Memory
It is not he that searches for praise that finds it.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Praise
The despotism of will in ideas is styled plan, project, character, obstinacy; its despotism in desires is called passion.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Will
Gold, like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls and contracts bad hearts.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Gold
A panic is the stampede of our self-possession.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Familiarity is the root of the closest friendships, as well as the interests hatreds.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Familiarity, Knowledge
The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Wealth
Silence never yet betrayed any one!
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: One liners, Silence
If poverty makes man groan, he yawns in opulence.—When fortune exempts us from labor, nature overwhelms us with time.
—Antoine de Rivarol
A fool may have his coat embroidered with gold, but it is a fool’s coat still.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Fools
Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, complaining of the present, and trembling for the future.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Complaining, Living, Life
Oblivion is the rule, and fame the exception of humanity.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Fame
Tenderness is the repose of love.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Ideas
Indolence and stupidity are first cousins.
—Antoine de Rivarol
It is easy for men to write and talk like philosophers, but to act with wisdom, there is the rub!
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Philosophy
Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: One liners, Speech, Conversation
That which happens to the soil when it ceases to be cultivated, happens to man himself when he foolishly forsakes society for solitude; the brambles grow up in his desert heart.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Solitude
The most civilized people are as near to barbarism, as the most polished steel is to rust.—Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Topics: Civilization
In general, indulgence for those we know, is rarer than pity for those we know not.
—Antoine de Rivarol
No fallacy can hide wrong, no subterfuge cover it so shrewdly but that the All-Seeing One will discover and punish it.
—Antoine de Rivarol
To lose one’s self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.
—Antoine de Rivarol
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand French Writer, Statesman
Montesquieu French Political Philosopher
Voltaire French Philosopher, Author
Blaise Cendrars Swiss Poet, Writer
Antonin Artaud French Drama Theorist
Gerard de Nerval French Poet, Writer
Stephane Mallarme French Poet
Alfred de Musset French Poet, Playwright
Edgar Quinet French Intellectual
Michel Leiris French Surrealist Writer, Ethnographer