“You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.”

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 189.

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Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues 60
French writer, a moralist 1715–1747

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