“No one is bound to be clever, but every one is under an obligation to be good.”

— Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac

Il n'y a personne qui soit tenu d'être habile; mais il n'y en a point qui ne soit obligé d'être bon.
Aristippe, ou De la cour (1658), Discours VII.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 66.

Original

Il n'y a personne qui soit tenu d'être habile; mais il n'y en a point qui ne soit obligé d'être bon.

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Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac 8

French author, best known for his epistolary essays 1597–1654

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