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“We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 180.

“Young people suffer less from their faults than from the prudence of the old.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 174.

“With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 176.

“Superficial knowledge … is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 178.

“Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

La foi est la consolation des misérables et la terreur des heureux.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 184.

“It cannot be a vice in men to be sensible of their strength.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 187.

“If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 175.

“Mercy is of greater value than justice.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

La clémence vaut mieux que la justice.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 174.

“No one says in the morning: A day is soon past, let us wait for the night. On the contrary, in the evening we consider what we shall do the next day. We should be very sorry to spend even one day at the mercy of time and bores. … Who can be certain of spending an hour without being bored, if he takes no care to fill even that short period according to his pleasure. Yet what we cannot be certain of for an hour, we sometimes feel assured of for life, and say: “If death is the end of everything, why give ourselves so much trouble? We are extremely foolish to make such a pother about the future”—that is to say, we are extremely foolish not to entrust our destinies to chance, and to provide for the interval which lies between us and death.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 173.

“If a man is endowed with a noble and courageous soul, if he is painstaking, proud, ambitious, without meanness, of a profound a deep-seated intelligence, I dare assert that he lacks nothing to be neglected by the great and men in high office, who fear, more than other men, those whom they cannot dominate.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 188.

“The moderation of great men only sets a limit to their vices. The moderation of weak men is mediocrity.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 168.

“If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulses of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavor is to subdue our children’s spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), pp. 185-186.

“Some authors regard morality in the same light as we regard modern architecture. Convenience is the first thing to be looked for.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 166.

“The falsest of all philosophies is that which, under the pretext of delivering men from the embarrassment of their passions, counsels idleness and the abandonment and neglect of themselves.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 172.

“Great thoughts come from the heart.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Les grandes pensées viennent du coeur.
Maxim 127 in Réflexions et maximes ("Reflections and Maxims") (1746); this can be compared with "High-erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy", Sir Philip Sidney, Defence of Poesy (1581, published 1595).

“Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

As quoted in Queers in History : The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays (2009), by Keith Stern, p. 465.

“It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of the right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 177.

“When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 187.

“It is good to be firm by temperament and pliant by reflection.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 176.

“As it is natural to believe many things without proof, so, despite all proof, is it natural to disbelieve others.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 184.