When a plain-looking woman is loved, it is certain to be very passionately ; for either her influence on her lover is irresistible, or she has some secret and more irresistible charms than those of beauty.
The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.
A man of variable mind is not one man, but several men in one; he multiplies himself as often as he changes his taste and manners; he is not this minute what he was the last, and will not be the next what he is now; he is his own successor.
The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.
We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.
One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
Children have neither past nor future; and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present. [Fr., Les enfants n'ont ni passe ni avenir; et, ce qui ne nous arrive guere, ils jouissent du present.]
If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only who are estimable.
I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture. MARTIN LUTHER, letter to Chancellor Gregory Brück, January 13, 1524 Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
In art them is a point of perfection, as of goodness or maturity in nature; he who is able to perceive it, and who loves it, has perfect taste; he who does not feel it, or loves on this side or that, has an imperfect taste.
He who excels in his art so as to carry it to the utmost height of perfection of which it is capable may be said in some measure to go beyond it: his transcendent productions admit of no appellations.
When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.
I call worldly or earthly those whose minds and hearts are fixed on a tiny portion of this world they live in, which is our earth; who respect and love nothing beyond it: people as limited as what they call their property or their estate, which can be measured, whose acres can be counted, whose boundaries can be shown.
Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.
A prince wants only the pleasure of private life to complete his happiness.
Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
To be among people one loves, that's sufficient; to dream, to speak to them, to be silent among them, to think of indifferent things; but among them, everything is equal.
There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.
How many men are like trees, already strong and full grown, which are transplanted into some gardens, to the astonishment of those people who behold them in these fine spots, where they never saw them grow, and who neither know their beginning nor their progress!
The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects; it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect; it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.
It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.
What is certain in death is somewhat softened by what is uncertain; it is an indefiniteness in the time, which holds a certain relation to the infinite, and what is called eternity.
The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
Love, slow and gradual in its growth, is too much like friendship ever to be a violent passion.
Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities; it floats between virtue and vice; there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.
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