Le bon goût, le tact et le bon ton, ont plus de rapport que n'affectent de le croire les Gens de Lettres. Le tact, c'est le bon goût appliqué au main- tien et à la conduite; le bon ton, c'est le bon goût appliqué aux discours et à la conversation.
Maximes et Pensées, #427
Maxims and Considerations, #427
“There is nothing so easily made offensive as good reasoning; and men of clear logical minds, if not gifted at the same time with tact, make more enemies than men with bad hearts and unsound understandings.”
Source: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. (1871), p. 114
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Arthur Helps 17
British writer 1813–1875Related quotes
“It is much easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”
Source: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
“Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.”
“There's nothing more annoying than cold logic and reason when you've got a good fit going.”
Source: The Angel Experiment
Frame of Government (1682)
Context: Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.
Rien ne fait mieux comprendre le peu de chose que Dieu croit donner aux hommes, en leur abandonnant les richesses, l'argent, les grands établissements et les autres biens, que la dispensation qu'il en fait, et le genre d'hommes qui en sont le mieux pourvus.
Aphorism 24
Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 312.
“3918. Praise makes good Men better, and bad Men worse.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Variant: 3162. Learning makes a good Man better, and an ill Man worse.