Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
There are certain people fated to be fools; they not only commit follies by choice, but are even constrained to do so by fortune.
We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.
The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
We are much mistaken if we think that men are always brave from a principle of valor, or women chaste from a principle of modesty.
Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.
Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest.
Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
It is with certain good qualities as with the senses; those who have them not can neither appreciate nor comprehend them in others.
When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.
A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.
Most women lament not the death of their lovers so much out of real affection for them, as because they would appear worthy of love.
We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, but envy is a timid and shamefaced passion we never dare to acknowledge.
The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.
Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. It is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
It is with sincere affection or friendship as with ghosts and apparitions,--a thing that everybody talks of, and scarce any hath seen.
If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness.
Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.
Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.
It is sometimes a point of as much cleverness to know to make good use of advice from others as to be able give good advice to oneself.
The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.
Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.
Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret.
As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.
What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.
People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her.
It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated; and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend.
He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.
It is easier for a man to be thought fit for an employment that he has not, than for one he stands already possessed of, and is exercising.
The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.
How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?
A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavors to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
Folly pursues us at all periods of our lives. If someone seems wise it is only because his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.
Even the most disinterested love is, after all, but a kind of bargain, in which self-love always proposes to be the gainer one wayor another.
Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.
The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.
The courage of a great many men, and the virtue of a great many women, are the effect of vanity, shame, and especially a suitabletemperament.
Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.
As the great ones of this world are unable to bestow health of body or peace of mind, we always pay too high a price for any good they can do.
What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.
The reason why most women have so little sense of friendship is that this is but a cold and flat passion to those that have felt that of love.
The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease.