Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

If you will allow me, at my age, a reflection that is scarcely ever made at yours, I must say that if one only knew where one's true happiness lay one would never look for it outside the limits prescribed by the law and by religion.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Success, which is not always a proof of merit, depends more often on the choice of a subject than on its execution.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
One hand was needed for power, the other for love: where is the orator that could aspire to grace in such a position?

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Either you have a rival or you don't. If you have one, you must set out to please, so as to be preferred to him. If you don't have one, you must still please so as to obviate the possibility of having one.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I'm tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and I.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Le ridicule qu'on a augmente toujours en proportion qu'on s'en défend.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Monsieur de Valmont, with an illustrious name, a large fortune, and many agreeable qualities, early realized that to achieve influence in society no more is required than to practise the arts of adulation and ridicule with equal skill.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
An opportunity missed once will present itself again, whereas a too hasty action can never be recalled.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Man enjoys the happiness he feels, woman the happiness she gives. This difference, so essential and yet so seldom noticed, has a marked difference on the whole of their respective behavior. A man's pleasure is to satisfy desires, a woman's is chiefly to arouse them.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
One's ridiculousness increases in proportion as one denies it.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The shame love causes is like its pain; we only feel it once. We may feign it afterwards, but we do not feel it. However, the pleasure remains, and that is indeed something.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The scoundrel has his good qualities, and the good man his weaknesses.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
One may quote bad poetry if it is by a great poet.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
He cannot rate me very high if he thinks he is worth my fidelity!

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Luxury, nowadays, is ruinous. We criticize, but must conform, and superfluities in the end deprive us of necessities.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
One has lived long enough if one has had time to win the love of women and the esteem of men.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Our intentions make blackguards of us all; our weakness in carrying them out we call probity.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos