Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues: Use

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

“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.

“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.

“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 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.

“The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

La pensée de la mort nous trompe, car elle nous fait oublier de vivre.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 172.

“Are we surprised if a sick man cannot walk, or keep awake, or stand upright? Would it not be more surprising if he was the same man as when he was well? If we have a headache, or have slept badly, we are excused for telling incapable of work, and yet no one suspects us of always being lazy. Shall we deny a dying man the privilege we grant a man with a headache? And dare we assert that the man who lacks courage in his last agony never possessed virtue when he was well.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

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

“Reason and emotion counsel and supplement each other. Whoever heeds only the one, and puts aside the other, recklessly deprives himself of a portion of the aid granted us for the regulation of our conduct.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

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

“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.

“Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

La nécessité nous délivre de l'embarras du choix.
Maxim 592 in Reflections and Maxims (1746), as translated by F. G. Stevens.

“The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

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