Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues
57 quotes
Biography
Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues was a French writer and moralist. He died at age 31, in broken health, having published the year prior—anonymously—a collection of essays and aphorisms with the encouragement of Voltaire, his friend.
"Les grandes pensées viennent du coeur."
"L'espérance fait plus de dupes que l'habileté."
"La nécessité nous délivre de l'embarras du choix."
"Ceux qui médisent toujours, nuisent rarement; ils méditent plus de mal qu'ils n'en peuvent faire."
"La clarté est la bonne foi des philosophes"
"Ceux quix craignent les hommes aiment les lois."
"Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for."
"It is proof of a narrow mind when things worthy of esteem are distinguished from things worthy of love. Great minds naturally love whatever is worthy of their esteem."
"La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité."
"If passion sometimes counsels greater boldness than does reflection, it gives more strength to execute it."
"Magnanimity owes no account to prudence of its motives."
"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."
"Pour exécuter de grandes choses, il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais mourir."
"La pensée de la mort nous trompe, car elle nous fait oublier de vivre."
"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."
"No one says in the morning: A day is soon past, let us wait for the night. On the contrary, in the evening we consider what we shall do the next day. We should be very sorry to spend even one day at the mercy of time and bores. ... Who can be certain of spending an hour without being bored, if he takes no care to fill even that short period according to his pleasure. Yet what we cannot be certain of for an hour, we sometimes feel assured of for life, and say: "If death is the end of everything, why give ourselves so much trouble? We are extremely foolish to make such a pother about the future"—that is to say, we are extremely foolish not to entrust our destinies to chance, and to provide for the interval which lies between us and death."
"Reason and emotion counsel and supplement each other. Whoever heeds only the one, and puts aside the other, recklessly deprives himself of a portion of the aid granted us for the regulation of our conduct."
"Young people suffer less from their faults than from the prudence of the old."
"It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves."
"La clémence vaut mieux que la justice."
"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."
"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."
"With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature."
"Those who fear men love the laws."
"Qui sait tout souffrir peut tout oser."