Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.
People seem to lose all respect for the past; events succeed each other with such velocity that the most remarkable one of a few years gone by, is no more remembered than if centuries had closed over it.
We are more prone to murmur at the punishment of our faults than to lament them.
... I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see, for disappointment never fails to ensue.
He who fears not, is to be feared.
Mediocrity is beneath a brave soul.
A poor man defended himself when charged with stealing food to appease the cravings of hunger, saying, the cries of the stomach silenced those of the conscience.
Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart.
Society seldom forgives those who have discovered the emptiness of its pleasures, and who can live independent of it and them.
Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .
Friends are the thermometer by which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes.
Some people are capable of making great sacrifices, but few are capable of concealing how much the effort has cost them; and it is this concealment that constitutes their value.
Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,--they are better critics than authors.
Many minds that have withstood the most severe trials have been broken down by a succession of ignoble cares.
When we find that we are not liked, we assert that we are not understood; when probably the dislike we have excited proceeds from our being too fully comprehended.
Wit lives in the present, but genius survives the future.
A beautiful woman without fixed principles may be likened to those fair but rootless flowers which float in streams, driven by every breeze.
Imagination, which is the Eldorado of the poet and of the novel-writer, often proves the most pernicious gift to the individuals who compose the talkers instead of the writers in society.
A profound knowledge of life is the least enviable of all species of knowledge, because it can only be acquired by trials that make us regret the loss of our ignorance.
Those can most easily dispense with society who are the most calculated to adorn it; they only are dependent on it who possess no mental resources, for though they bring nothing to the general mart, like beggars, they are too poor to stay at home.
The future: A consolation for those who have no other.
A woman's head is always influenced by her heart, but a man's heart is always influenced by his head.
It is a sad thing to look at happiness only through another's eyes.
Bores: People who talk of themselves, when you are thinking only of yourself.
There is no cosmetic like happiness
To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.
Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrama.
Calumny is the offspring of Envy.
Men who would persecute others for religious opinions, prove the errors of their own.
Reason dissipates the illusions of life, but does not console us for their departure.
To appear rich, we become poor.
A German writer observes: "The noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave.
Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.
There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world.
Love and enthusiasm are always ridiculous, when not reciprocated by their objects.
The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges.
When we bring back with us the objects most dear, and find those we left unchanged, we are tempted to doubt the lapse of time; but one link in the chain of affection broken, and every thing seems altered.
Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.
The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.
He who would remain honest ought to keep away want.
There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.
Love matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a life of vinegar.
Happiness is a rare plant that seldom takes root on earth-few ever enjoyed it, except for a brief period; the search after it is rarely rewarded by the discovery, but there is an admirable substitute for it... a contented spirit.
Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.
Those who are formed to win general admiration are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.
Sure there's different roads from this to Dungarvan* - some thinks one road pleasanter, and some think another; wouldn't it be mighty foolish to quarrel for this? - and sure isn't it twice worse to thry to interfere with people for choosing the road they like best to heaven?
In France, a woman may forget that she is neither young nor handsome; for the absence of these claims to attention does not expose her to be neglected by the male sex.
A mother's love! O holy, boundless thing! Fountain whose waters never cease to spring!
There is no magician like love.
Tears may be dried up, but the heart - never.
Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.
Yes, the meeting of dear friends atones for the regret of separation; and like it so much enhances affection, that after absence one wonders how one has been able to stay away from them so long.
Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.
The most certain mode of making people content with us is to make them content with themselves.
Haste is always ungraceful.
A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question.
The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.
Flowers are the bright remembrances of youth; they waft us back, with their bland odorous breath, the joyous hours that only young life knows, ere we have learnt that this fair earth hides graves.
Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.
Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.
We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking?
Thoughts come maimed and plucked of plumage from the lips, which, from the pea, in the silence of your own leisure and study, would be born with far more beauty.
Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic.
Tears fell from my eyes - yes, weak and foolish as it now appears to me, I wept for my departed youth; and for that beauty of which the faithful mirror too plainly assured me, no remnant existed.
Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sunshine, and reflection the moonlight.
Superstition is but the fear of belief.
Pleasure is like a cordial - a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.
alas! there is no casting anchor in the stream of time!
Flattery, if judiciously administered, is always acceptable.
Life would be as insupportable without the prospect of death, as it would be without sleep.
Spring is the season of hope, and autumn is that of memory.
Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful.
Our weaknesses are the indigenous produce of our characters; but our strength is the forced fruit.
Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.
[His mind] was like a volcano, full of fire and wealth, sometimes calm, often dazzling and playful, but ever threatening. It ran swift as the lightning from one subject to another, and occasionally burst forth in passionate throes of intellect, nearly allied to madness.
I see little alteration at Lyons since I formerly passed through it. Its manufactories are, nevertheless, flourishing, though less improvement than could be expected is visible in the external aspect of the place.
One of the most marked characteristics of our day is a reckless neglect of principles, and a rigid adherence to their semblance.
We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers
Men are capable of making great sacrifices, who are not willing to make the lesser ones, on which so much of the happiness of life depends. The great sacrifices are seldom called for, but the minor ones are in daily requisition; and the making them with cheerfulness and grace enhances their value.
Happiness consists not in having much, but in being content with little.
Listeners beware, for ye are doomed never to hear good of yourselves.
Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.
Here Fashion is a despot, and no one dreams of evading its dictates.
There are some chagrins of the heart which a friend ought to try to console without betraying a knowledge of their existence, as there are physical maladies which a physician ought to seek to heal without letting the sufferer know that he has discovered their extent.
People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.
When the sun shines on you, you see your friends. It requires sunshine to be seen by them to advantage!
Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant; democracy, to many.
Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.
Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.
You were wise not to waste years in a lawsuit ... he who commences a suit resembles him who plants a palm-tree which he will not live to see flourish.
The chief prerequisite for a escort is to have a flexible conscience and an inflexible politeness.
Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes.
