Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues: Greatness

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues was French writer, a moralist. Explore interesting quotes on greatness.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues: 120 quotes77 likes

“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.

“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).

“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 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.

“To accomplish great things we must live as though we had never to die.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Pour exécuter de grandes choses, il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais mourir.
Quoted in Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays (2009), by Keith Stern, p. 466.
Variant: In order to achieve great things, we must live as though we were never going to die.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 172.

“The generality of men are so bound within the sphere of their circumstances that they have not even the courage to get out of them through their ideas, and if we see a few whom, in a way, speculation over great things makes incapable of mean ones, we find still more with whom the practice of small things takes away the feeling for great ones.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), pp. 180-181.

“We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

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

“Great men are sometimes so even in small things.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

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

“Great men in teaching weak men to reflect have set them on the road to error.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 179.