Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Quotes
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Women see faults much more readily in each other than they can discover perfections.
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Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.
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Thought consoles us for all, and heals all. If at times it does you ill, ask it for the remedy for that ill and it will give it to you.
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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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In the fine arts, as in many other things, we know well only what we have not learned.
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Most anthologists of poetry or quotations are like those who eat cherries or oysters, first picking the best and ending by eating everything.
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Chance is a nickname for Providence.
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
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We gild our medicines with sweets; why not clothe truth and morals in peasant garments as well?
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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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Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death.
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Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.
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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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Egotism is the tongue of vanity.
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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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Tis easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate.
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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.
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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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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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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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Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he's always ready to escape their control.
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Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.
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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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Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he says, "because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.