La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 168.
“Great men in teaching weak men to reflect have set them on the road to error.”
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 179.
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Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues 60
French writer, a moralist 1715–1747Related quotes
“It is not great men who change the world, but weak men in the hands of a great God.”
Source: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun
(Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 29).
Variant: All God’s giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.
The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894)
Variant: Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
“He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.”
Book I, Ch. 20
Essais (1595), Book I
Variant: He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.