Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Quotes
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Satire is the disease of art.
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Pleasure may come from illusion, but happiness can come only of reality.
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He who leaves the game wins it.
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The success of many books is due to the affinity between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and those of the public.
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Marriage follows on love as smoke on flame.
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All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed.
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Men's hearts and faces are always wide asunder; women's are not only in close connection, but are mirror-like in the instant power of reflection.
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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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It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyse before we can live happily in this world.
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Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect.
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A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure.
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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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Intelligent people make many mistakes because they cannot believe the world is really as foolish as it is.
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There is as much expression in the feet as in the hands.
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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.
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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.
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The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.
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Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth.
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The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.
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There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
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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.
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The poor are the blacks of Europe.
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There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.
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Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another.