Quotes from Antoine Rivarol

Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.

If poverty makes man groan, he yawns in opulence. When fortune exempts us from labor, nature overwhelms us with time.

Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.

Oblivion is the rule and fame the exception, of humanity.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Generally speaking, there is more wit than talent in the world. Society swarms with witty people who lack talent.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

That which happens to the soil when it ceases to be cultivated by the social man happens to man himself when he foolishly forsakes society for solitude; the brambles grow up in his desert heart.

Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way.

It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.

To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

Opinions, theories, and systems pass by turns over the grindstone of time, which at first gives them brilliancy and sharpness, but finally wears them out.

History is only time furnished with dates and rich with events.

The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.

Tenderness is the infancy of love.

The world is governed by love,--self-love.

Memory always obeys the commands of the heart.

It is easy for men to write and talk like philosophers, but to act with wisdom, there is the rub!

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy.

Brave men do not boast nor bluster. Deeds, not words, speak for such.

The methods that help a man acquire a fortune are the very ones that keep him from enjoying it.

Mind is the partial side of men; the heart is everything.