Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Quotes
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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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Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two men together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact.
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There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.
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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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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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The poor are the blacks of Europe.
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Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.
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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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Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect.
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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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Egotism is the tongue of vanity.
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At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing.
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One must not hope to be more than one can be.
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A person of intellect without energy added to it, is a failure.
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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.
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All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.
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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.
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Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.
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Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
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There some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
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The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
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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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Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.
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It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.