“Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person’s true nature?”
Jean-Dominique Bauby (1952–1997) French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazine ELLE
“Raillery is a kind of mirth which takes possession of the imagination, and shows every object in an absurd light; wit combines more or less softness or harshness.”
Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), II. On Difference of Character
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François de La Rochefoucauld156
French author of maxims and memoirs 1613–1680Related quotes
“Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.”
Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker
La raillerie est un discours en faveur de son esprit contre son bon naturel.
Pensées Diverses
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
Discourses on the Condition of the Great
Context: Do not imagine that it is less an accident by which you find yourself master of the wealth which you possess, than that by which this man found himself king.
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour (1709), Part 1, Sec. 5, incorrectly attributing it to Gorgias via Aristotle.
Misattributed
“Shadows…bring softness to every thing. An object and its shadow are softness and hardness.”
Eli Siegel (1902–1978) Latvian-American poet, philosopher
Everything Has to Do with Hardness and Softness (1969)
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
“Crowd mentality is a kind of simultaneous psychosis which may take possession of any group.”
Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)
Source: Farewell to Revolution (1935), p. xi, Foreword
“…possessed of more self-knowledge, which is the kind of knowledge that makes people attractive.”
Javier Marías (1951) Spanish writer
...sabe más de sí misma, que es el conocimiento que hace atractivas a las personas.
Source: Todas las Almas [All Souls] (1989), p. 68
“Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century
To the Memory of Mr. Oldham, line 15.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl
Vol. 1, p. 38; "Sensus Communis".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)