C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Vauvenargues
A man who loves only himself and his pleasures is vain, presumptuous, and wicked even from principle.
A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views.
All that causes one man to differ from another is a very slight thing. What is it that is the origin of beauty or ugliness, health or weakness, ability or stupidity? A slight difference in the organs, a little more or a little less bile. Yet this more or less is of infinite importance to men; and when they think otherwise they are mistaken.
Clearness is the ornament of profound thought.
Constancy is the chimera of love.
Courage is adversity’s lamp.
Despair is the greatest of our errors.
Excessive distrust is not less hurtful than its opposite. Most men become useless to him who is unwilling to risk being deceived.
Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits.
Great thoughts proceed from the heart.
Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love.
Hope animates the wise, and lures the presumptuous and indolent who repose inconsiderately on her promises.
In order to do great things, it is necessary to live as if one was never to die.
Indolence is the sleep of the mind.
It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.
It is easy to criticise an author, but it is difficult to appreciate him.
It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed, but uniformity.
It is untrue that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality; its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.
Jealousy is the paralysis of love.
Our virtues are clearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection admits a sacrifice.
Patience is the art of hoping.
Prosperity makes few friends.
Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.
The advantage to be derived from virtue is so evident that the wicked practise it from sinister motives.
The character of false wit is that of appearing to depend only upon reason.
The conscience of the dying belies their life.
The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of all pleasures.
The idea of bringing all men on an equality with each other has always been a pleasant dream; the law cannot equalize men in spite of nature.
The law cannot equalize men in spite of Nature.
The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.
We can console ourselves for not having great talents as we console ourselves for not having great places. We can be above both in our hearts.
We must expect everything and fear everything from time and from men.
We often quarrel with the unfortunate to get rid of pitying them.
We ought never to be afraid to repeat an ancient truth, when we feel that we can make it more striking by a neater turn, or bring it alongside of another truth, which may make it clearer, and thereby accumulate evidence. It belongs to the inventive faculty to see clearly the relative state of things, and to be able to place them in connection, but the discoveries of ages gone by belong less to their first authors than to those who make them practically useful to the world.
When a thought is too weak to be simply expressed, it is a clear proof that it should be rejected.
Wit does not take the place of knowledge.