To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Achieving, Immortality
Perspicuity is the framework of profound thoughts.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Style
If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Praise, Compliments
You must rouse into people’s consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Motivation, Motivational
Few maxims are true from every point of view.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Proverbs
If anyone accuses me of contradicting myself, I reply: Because I have been wrong once, or oftener, I do not aspire to be always wrong.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Change
Hope deceives more men than cunning does.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Hope
Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Laziness
Excessive distrust of others is not less hurtful than its opposite.—Most men become useless to him who is unwilling to risk being deceived.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Indolence is the sleep of the mind.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
We discover in others what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Discovery
Patience is the art of hoping.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: One liners, Hope, Patience
Prosperity makes few friends.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Friendship
Those who can bear all can dare all.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Endurance
We ought never to be afraid to repeat an ancient truth, when we feel that we can make it more striking by a neater turn, or bring it alongside of another truth, which may make it clearer, and thereby accumulate evidence. It belongs to the inventive faculty to see clearly the relative state of things, and to be able to place them in connection; but the discoveries of ages gone by belong less to their first authors than to those who make them practically useful to the world.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Quotations
It is not true that equality is a law of nature.—Nature has no equality.—Its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Equality
The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambitions.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Acceptance
Great men undertake great things because they are great; and fools because they think them easy.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Greatness, Motivation, Wisdom
When thought is too weak to be simply expressed, it’s clear proof that it should be rejected.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Value of a Day, Thoughts, Time Management, Simplicity
Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Awareness, Perception
There are men who are happy without knowing it.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Blessings, Happiness
We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Expectation, Weather
The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of all pleasures.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Labor
The things we know best are the things we haven’t been taught.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Knowledge
Obscurity is the realm of error.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
To possess taste, one must have some soul.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Taste, Style
A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Discovery
No one is more liable to make mistakes than the man who acts only on reflection.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Instincts, Reason
Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Ability
Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection admits a sacrifice.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Topics: Sacrifice
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Christopher Lasch American Historian
- Michel de Montaigne French Essayist
- Andre Gide French Novelist
- Albert Camus Algerian-born French Philosopher
- Marcel Proust French Novelist
- Joseph Joubert French Essayist
- Denis Diderot French Philosopher, Writer
- Voltaire French Philosopher, Author
- Michel Houellebecq French Author
- Octave Mirbeau French Author
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