Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Quotes
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Chance is a nickname for Providence.
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Calumny is like the wasp which worries you, and which it is not best to try to get rid of unless you are sure of slaying it; for otherwise it returns to the charge more furious than ever.
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There are more people who wish to be loved than there are who are willing to love.
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Tis easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate.
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Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.
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I only study the things I like; I apply my mind only to matters that interest me. They'll be useful-or useless-to me or to others in due course, I'll be given-or not given-the opportunity of benefiting from what I've learned. In any case, I'll have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of doing things I like doing and following my own inclinations.
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In order to forgive reason for the evil it has wrought on the majority of men, we must imagine for ourselves what man would be without his reason. 'Tis a necessary evil.
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Man reaches each stage of his life as a novice.
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He who leaves the game wins it.
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Satire is the disease of art.
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If taking vitamins doesn't keep you healthy enough, try more laughter: The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.
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Marriage follows on love as smoke on flame.
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In a country where everyone strives for attention, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.
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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.
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Prudence replaces strength by saving the man who has the misfortune of not possessing it from most occasions when it's needed.
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Nature in causing reason and the passions to be born at one and the same time apparently wished by the latter gift to distract man from the evil she had done him by the former, and by only permitting him to live for a few years after the loss of his passions seems to show her pity by early deliverance from a life that reduces him to reason as his sole resource.
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There is a melancholy that stems from greatness
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Every day I add to the list of things I refuse to discuss. The wiser the man, the longer the list.
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Narrow waists and narrow minds go together.
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We must start human society from scratch; as Francis Bacon said, we must recreate human understanding.
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Love is like epidemic diseases. The more one fears it the more likely one is to contract it.
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The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.
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Egotism is the tongue of vanity.
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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.