Madeleine de Souvre Quotes
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In knowledge of human affairs, we should never allow our minds to be enslaved by others by subjecting ourselves to their whims. We must maintain freedom of thought, and never accept anything of purely human authority into our heads. When we are presented with a diversity of opinions, we must choose, if we can; if we cannot, we must remain in doubt.
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We need not regard what good a friend has done us, but only his desire to do us good.
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We so love all new and unusual things that we even derive a secret pleasure from the saddest and most tragic events, both because of their novelty and because of the natural malignity that exists within us.
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Just as there is no action weaker or more unreasonable than to submit one's judgment to another's, where there is no advantage to oneself, so also there is nothing greater or wiser than to place oneself unquestioningly under God's judgment by believing in every word He speaks.
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There is a certain manner of self-absorption in speaking that always renders the speaker disagreeable. For it is as great a folly to listen only to ourselves while we are carrying on a conversation with others as it is to talk to ourselves while we are alone.
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Self-love makes us deceive ourselves in almost all matters, to censure others, and to blame them for the same faults that we do not correct in ourselves; we do this either because we are unaware of the evil that exists within us, or because we always see our own evil disguised as a good.
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It is a strength of character to acknowledge our failings and our strong points, and it is a weakness of character not to remain in harmony with both the good and the bad that is within us.
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Ignorance makes for weakness and fear; knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination.
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The foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.
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The maxims of Christian life, which should draw upon the truths of the Gospel, are always partially symbolic of the mind and temperament of those who teach them to us. The former, by their natural sweetness, show us the quality of God's mercy; the latter, by their harshness, show us God's justice.
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It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.
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The conversation of those who like to lord it over us is very disagreeable. But we should always be ready to graciously acknowledge the truth, no matter in what guise it comes to us.
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Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.
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It is a very common failing, never to be pleased with our fortune nor displeased with our character.
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We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half.
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All the great amusements are dangerous for the Christian life.
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Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.
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When people reproach us, they only increase their own failings even as they are disclaiming them.
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Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.
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Everyone is so caught up in his own passions and interests that he always wants to talk about them without getting involved in the passions and interests of those to whom he speaks, although his listeners have the same need for others to listen to and help them.
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Wealth does not teach us to transcend the desire for wealth. The possession of many goods does not bring the repose of not desiring them.
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The ties of virtue ought to be closer than the ties of blood, since the good man is closer to another good man by their similarity of morals than the son is to his father by their similarity of face.
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It is an admirable skill to able to sweeten a refusal with civil words which atone for the favor which we are not able to grant.
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It is neither a great praise nor a great blame when people say a tendency is in or out of fashion. If a tendency is as it should be at one time, it is always as it should be.