“One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.”
L'on veut faire tout le bonheur, ou si cela ne se peut ainsi, tout le malheur de ce qu'on aime.
Aphorism 39
Les Caractères (1688), Du Coeur
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Jean de La Bruyère65
17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696Related quotes
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
No. 2. Waverley — ROSE BRADWARDINE.
Literary Remains
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Meir Kahane (1932–1990) American/Israeli political activist and rabbi
Jewishsphere http://www.jewishsphere.com/Directory/HistoryOfIsrael.html
Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…
The Spirit of Revolt (1880)
Context: One courageous act has sufficed to upset in a few days the entire governmental machinery, to make the colossus tremble; another revolt has stirred a whole province into turmoil, and the army, till now always so imposing, has retreated before a handful of peasants armed with sticks and stones. The people observe that the monster is not so terrible as they thought they begin dimly to perceive that a few energetic efforts will be sufficient to throw it down. Hope is born in their hearts, and let us remember that if exasperation often drives men to revolt, it is always hope, the hope of victory, which makes revolutions.
The government resists; it is savage in its repressions. But, though formerly persecution killed the energy of the oppressed, now, in periods of excitement, it produces the opposite result. It provokes new acts of revolt, individual and collective, it drives the rebels to heroism; and in rapid succession these acts spread, become general, develop. The revolutionary party is strengthened by elements which up to this time were hostile or indifferent to it.
“Only love can make one happy.”
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos book Les Liaisons dangereuses
On n'est heureux que par l'amour. <br class="br">Letter 155: Le Vicomte de Valmont to le Chevalier Danceny. Trans. P.W.K. Stone (1961). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_155 <br class="br">Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)