Clapiers Quotes & Sayings

The common excuse for those bringing misfortune on others is that they desire their good. — Luc De Clapiers

The idle always have a mind to do something. — Luc De Clapiers

Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love. — Luc De Clapiers

Hope animates the wise, and lures the presumptuous and indolent who repose inconsiderately on her promises. — Luc De Clapiers

A man can hardly be said to have made a fortune if he does not know how to enjoy it. — Luc De Clapiers

Peace renders nations happier and men weaker. — Luc De Clapiers

When we are sick our virtues and our vices are in abeyance. — Luc De Clapiers

The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition. — Luc De Clapiers

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught. — Luc De Clapiers

Indolence is the sleep of the mind. — Luc De Clapiers

The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition. — Luc De Clapiers

Is it against justice or reason to love ourselves? And why is self-love always a vice? — Luc De Clapiers

Consciousness of our strength increases it. — Luc De Clapiers

The falsest of all philosophies is that which, under the pretext of delivering men from the embarrassment of their passions, counsels idleness and the abandonment and neglect of themselves. — Luc De Clapiers

The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious. — Luc De Clapiers

Hope is the only good thing that disillusion respects. — Luc De Clapiers

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them. — Luc De Clapiers

Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank. — Luc De Clapiers

Servitude degrades people to such a point that they come to like it. — Luc De Clapiers

Necessity embitters the evils which it cannot cure. — Luc De Clapiers

When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself. — Luc De Clapiers

It is a great sign of mediocrity to praise always moderately. — Luc De Clapiers

Obscurity is the kingdom of error. — Luc De Clapiers

I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge. — Luc De Clapiers

More are taken in by hope than by cunning. — Luc De Clapiers

It is in our own mind and not in exterior objects that we perceive most things; fools know scarcely anything because they are empty, and their heart is narrow; but great souls find in themselves a number of exterior things; they have no need to read or to travel or to listen or to work to discover the highest truths; they have only to delve into themselves and search, if we may say so, their own thoughts. — Luc De Clapiers

Great men in teaching weak men to reflect have set them on the road to error. — Luc De Clapiers

We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design. — Luc De Clapiers

There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do. — Luc De Clapiers

Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy. — Luc De Clapiers

Some are born to invent, others to embellish; but the gilder attracts more attention than the architect. — Luc De Clapiers

The young suffer less from their own errors than from the cautiousness of the old. — Luc De Clapiers

One can not be just if one is not humane. — Luc De Clapiers

Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice. — Luc De Clapiers

In order to protect himself from force, man was obliged to submit to justice. Justice or force: he was compelled to choose between the two masters, so little are we made to be independent. — Luc De Clapiers

Courage is adversity's lamp. — Luc De Clapiers

The mind reaches great heights only by spurts. — Luc De Clapiers

Servitude debases men to the point where they end up liking it. — Luc De Clapiers

It is not in everyone's power to secure wealth, office, or honors; but everyone may be good, generous, and wise. — Luc De Clapiers

Necessity moderates more troubles than reason. — Luc De Clapiers

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character. — Luc De Clapiers

Great thoughts come from the heart — Luc De Clapiers De Vauvenargues

Lazy people always intend to start doing something. — Luc De Clapiers

More are taken in by love than by cunning. — Luc De Clapiers De Vauvenargues

Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies. — Luc De Clapiers

If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life. — Luc De Clapiers

The counsels of the old, like the winter sun, shine, but give no heat. — Luc De Clapiers

Superficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius. — Luc De Clapiers

To execute great things, one should live as though one would never die. — Luc De Clapiers

The best things are the most common. — Luc De Clapiers

It is proof of a narrow mind when things worthy of esteem are distinguished from things worthy of love. Great minds naturally love whatever is worthy of their esteem. — Luc De Clapiers

The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources. — Luc De Clapiers

Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good. — Luc De Clapiers

Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits. — Luc De Clapiers

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success. — Luc De Clapiers

It is unjust to exact that men shall do out of deference to our advice what they have no desire to do for themselves. — Luc De Clapiers

Jealousy is the paralysis of love. — Luc De Clapiers

Men despise great projects when they do not feel themselves capable of great successes. — Luc De Clapiers

The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures. — Luc De Clapiers

Whoever has seen the masked at a ball dance amicably together, and take hold of hands without knowing each other, leaving the next moment to meet no more, can form an idea of the world. — Luc De Clapiers

Consciousness of our powers augments them. — Luc De Clapiers

It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of the right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate. — Luc De Clapiers

The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good. — Luc De Clapiers

It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength. — Luc De Clapiers

Our actions are neither so good nor so evil as our impulses. — Luc De Clapiers

Sometimes a lengthened period of prosperity melts away in a moment; just as the heat of summer flies before a day of tempest. — Luc De Clapiers

Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers. — Luc De Clapiers

Patience is the art of hoping. — Luc De Clapiers

Give help rather than advice. — Luc De Clapiers

When we feel that we lack whatever is needed to secure someone else's esteem, we are very close to hating him — Luc De Clapiers

To achieve great things, we must live as though we were never going to die. — Luc De Clapiers De Vauvenargues

The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains. — Luc De Clapiers

Nothing endures except truth. — Luc De Clapiers

Everyone is born sincere and dies deceivers. — Luc De Clapiers

Truth is not so threadbare as speech, because fewer people can make use of it. — Luc De Clapiers

Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives. — Luc De Clapiers

If anyone accuses me of contradicting myself, I shall reply; I have been wrong once or more often, however I do not aspire to be always wrong. — Luc De Clapiers

It is sometimes easier to form a party than to attain by degrees the head of a party already formed. — Luc De Clapiers

You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men. — Luc De Clapiers

When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected. — Luc De Clapiers

Despair is the greatest of our errors. — Luc De Clapiers

You are not born for fame if you don't know the value of time. — Luc De Clapiers

The maxims of men reveal their characters. — Luc De Clapiers

Despair puts the last touch not only to our misery but also to our weakness. — Luc De Clapiers

If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural. — Luc De Clapiers

The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little. — Luc De Clapiers

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature. — Luc De Clapiers

Commerce is the school of cheating. — Luc De Clapiers

Learn to overrule minor interest in favor of great ones, and generously to do all the good the heart prompts; a man is never injured by acting virtuously. — Luc De Clapiers

Hope deceives more men than cunning does. — Luc De Clapiers

Generosity gives assistance, rather than advice. — Luc De Clapiers

To possess taste, one must have some soul. — Luc De Clapiers

Great men are sometimes so even in small things. — Luc De Clapiers

There does not exist a man sufficiently intelligent never to be tiresome. — Luc De Clapiers

The generality of men are so bound within the sphere of their circumstances that they have not even the courage to get out of them through their ideas, and if we see a few whom, in a way, speculation over great things makes incapable of mean ones, we find still more with whom the practice of small things takes away the feeling for great ones. — Luc De Clapiers

The mind of man is more intuitive than logical, and comprehends more than it can coordinate. — Luc De Clapiers

Men are not to be judged by what they do not know, but by what they know, and by the manner in which they know it. — Luc De Clapiers

Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided. — Luc De Clapiers

We are less hurt by the contempt of fools than by the lukewarm approval of men of intelligence. — Luc De Clapiers

No one likes to be pitied for his faults. — Luc De Clapiers