Luc de Clapiers Quotes

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We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves.

Luc de Clapiers
Men despise great projects when they do not feel themselves capable of great successes.

Luc de Clapiers
The light of the dawn is not so sweet as the first glimpses of fame.

Luc de Clapiers
We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design.

Luc de Clapiers
It is easier to say new things than to reconcile those which have already been said.

Luc de Clapiers
Lazy people are always looking for something to do.

Luc de Clapiers
Magnanimity owes no account to prudence of its motives.

Luc de Clapiers
Neither the gifts nor the blows of fortune equal those of nature.

Luc de Clapiers
The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.

Luc de Clapiers
The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.

Luc de Clapiers
Men dissimulate their dearest, most constant, and most virtuous inclination from weakness and a fear of being condemned.

Luc de Clapiers
If passion sometimes counsels greater boldness than does reflection, it gives more strength to execute it.

Luc de Clapiers
There does not exist a man sufficiently intelligent never to be tiresome.

Luc de Clapiers
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.

Luc de Clapiers
If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.

Luc de Clapiers
When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.

Luc de Clapiers
Sometimes a lengthened period of prosperity melts away in a moment; just as the heat of summer flies before a day of tempest.

Luc de Clapiers
We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.

Luc de Clapiers
Great men undertake great things because they are great, and fools because they think them easy.

Luc de Clapiers
Servitude debases man to a degree that leads him to love it.

Luc de Clapiers
It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.

Luc de Clapiers
Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.

Luc de Clapiers
It is good to be firm by temperament and pliant by reflection.

Luc de Clapiers
Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.

Luc de Clapiers
The moderation of great men only sets a limit to their vices. The moderation of weak men is mediocrity.

Luc de Clapiers
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.

Luc de Clapiers
Equality is not a law of nature. Nature has made no two things equal: its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.

Luc de Clapiers
Virtue is so praiseworthy that wicked people practice it from self-interest.

Luc de Clapiers
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.

Luc de Clapiers
Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

Luc de Clapiers