“Birth bestows less of honour than it demands; and to boast of ancestry is but to praise the merit of others.”
Source: A Mother's Advice to Her Son, 1726, p. 139
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Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert 23
writer from France 1647–1733Related quotes

“It is a characteristic of the great that they demand far less of other people than of themselves.”
Merkmal großer Menschen ist, daß sie an andere weit geringere Anforderungen stellen als an sich selbst.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 35.

“What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed.”
Letter IV : Heloise to Abelard
Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Context: What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed. A secret vanity springs up in the heart, blinds us, and conceals from us wounds that are ill cured. A seducer flatters us, and at the same time, aims at our destruction. A sincere friend disguises nothing from us, and from passing a light hand over the wound, makes us feel it the more intensely, by applying remedies. Why do you not deal after this manner with me? Will you be esteemed a base dangerous flatterer; or, if you chance to see any thing commendable in me, have you no fear that vanity, which is so natural to all women, should quite efface it? but let us not judge of virtue by outward appearances, for then the reprobates as well as the elect may lay claim to it. An artful impostor may, by his address gain more admiration than the true zeal of a saint.
"That Good Wine Needs No Bush".
Sketches from Life (1846)

“Love demands infinitely less than friendship.”

“Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.”
"First Meeting"
To My Daughters, With Love (1967)

Speech delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington Butts, London on 24th May 1870. See Education in India for major portion of the speech.

“All that I can boast of in my birth, is, that I was born in Old England.”
Source: 1790s, Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796), P. 1