Pierre Charron
Pierre Charron
wise learning men
The most excellent and divine counsel, the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practised, is to study and learn how to know ourselves. This is the foundation of wisdom and the highway to whatever is good. . . . God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.
french-philosopher man science study true
The true science and study of man is man.
believe easiest french-philosopher
The easiest way to be cheated is to believe yourself to be more cunning than others.
mind hardship fortune
Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best.
wise men deeds
God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.
heart house may
Riches should be admitted into our houses, but not into our hearts; we may take them into our possession, but not into our affections.
gratitude duty
Gratitude is a duty none can be excused from, because it is always at our own disposal.
revenge children fire
Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.
pain opposites laughing
Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite, are yet so contrived by nature as to be constant companions; and it is a fact that the same motions and muscles of the face are employed both in laughing and crying.
gratitude men differences
[Envy not for...] Whatever difference there may appear to be in men's fortunes, there is still a certain compensation of good and ill in all, that makes them equal.
relationship thanksgiving gratitude
He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it.
folly
The shortest follies are the best.
eye men long
He that boasts of his ancestors confesses that he has no virtue of his own. No person ever lived for our honor; nor ought that to be reputed ours, which was long before we had a being; for what advantage can it be to a blind man to know that his parents had good eyes? Does he see one whit the better?
blood mouths vapor
Those who have nothing else to recommend them to the respect of others but only their blood, cry it up at a great rate, and have their mouth perpetually full of it. They swell and vapor, and you are sure to hear of their families and relations every third word.