Quotes from Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.

The wisest man may always learn something from the humblest peasant.

People who declare that they belong to no party certainly do not belong to ours.

The politics of courtiers resemble their shadows; they cringe and turn with the sun of the day.

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.

It is not what we have but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance.

How many wells of science there are in whose depths there is nothing but clear water!

Every generous illusion of youth leaves a wrinkle as it departs. Experience is the successive disenchanting of the things of life; it is reason enriched with the heart's spoils.

Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant.

The virtuous woman flees from danger; she trusts more to her prudence in shunning it than in her strength to overcome it.

Another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat.

In love we are not only liable to betray ourselves, but also the secrets of others.

Those virtues which cost us dear prove that we love God; those which are easy to us prove that He loves us.

There are wounds of self-love which one does not confess to one's dearest friends.

To protect ourselves against the storms of passion, marriage with a woman is a harbor in the tempest; but with a bad woman it is a tempest in the harbor.

An angry woman is vindictive beyond measure, and hesitates at nothing in her bitterness.

The weak-minded man is the slave of his vices and the dupe of his virtues.

There is certainly no beauty on earth which exceeds the natural loveliness of woman.

That prudery which survives youth and beauty resembles a scarecrow left in the fields after harvest.

True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher.

What we gain by experience is not worth that we lose in illusion