Luc de Clapiers
Luc de Clapiers
Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargueswas a minor French writer, a moralist. He died at age 31, in broken health, having published the year prior—anonymously—a collection of essays and aphorisms with the encouragement of Voltaire, his friend. He first received public notice under his own name in 1797, and from 1857 on, his aphorisms became popular. In the history of French literature, his significance lies chiefly in his friendship with Voltaire...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth6 August 1715
CountryFrance
Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.
Despair puts the last touch not only to our misery but also to our weakness.
The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.
We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.
Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.
Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.
The mind is the soul's eye, not its source of power. That lies in the heart, in other words, in the passions.
Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good.
Indolence is the sleep of the mind.
The shortness of life cannot dissuade us from its pleasures, nor console us for its pains.
With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature.
The falsest of all philosophies is that which, under the pretext of delivering men from the embarrassment of their passions, counsels idleness and the abandonment and neglect of themselves.