Quotes from Luc de Clapiers

Constancy is the chimera of love.

Habit is everything, even in love.

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

Nothing endures except truth.

And where, on earth, dwell hope and truth? In childhood's uncorrupted heart; Alas! too soon to guileless youth The world doth its dark code impart!

Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.

The heaviest object in the world is the body of the woman you have ceased to love.

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

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.

Jealousy is the paralysis of love.

Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love.

Indolence is the sleep of the mind.

When thought is too weak to be simply expressed, it's clear proof that it should be rejected.

Vice foments war; it is virtue which actually fights. If there were no virtue, we would live in peace forever.

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.

The maxims of men reveal their characters.

It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

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

The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers.

There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.

Great men undertake great things because they are great; fools, because they think them easy.

All grand thoughts come from the heart.

Our actions are neither so good nor so evil as our impulses.

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