-
The success of many books is due to the affinity between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and those of the public.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas
-
Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
He who disguises tyranny, protection, or even benefits under the air and name of friendship reminds me of the guilty priest who poisoned the sacramental bread.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Were a man to consult only his reason, who would marry? For myself, I wouldn't marry, for fear of having a son who resembled me.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
One must not hope to be more than one can be.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas
-
The poor are the blacks of Europe.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
It is passion that makes man live; wisdom makes one only last.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas
-
We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
In a country where everyone strives for attention, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Running a house should be left to innkeepers.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas
-
The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it; otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Women bestow on friendship only what they borrow from love.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas -
Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas