Quotes by
Antoine Rivarol |
1753-1801 , French author of maxims
French writer who was the foremost journalist, commentator and epigrammatist among the class of aristocrats. He lived during the Revolutionary era, but was a supporter of the Ancien Régime . | 44 quotes | 2,212 visits |
Quotations
| • | The means which make a man fit to make a fortune are the same which prevent him from enjoying it. 7 |
| • | The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy. 6 |
| • | Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future. 4 |
| • | You never go so far as when you don't know where you are going. 4 |
| • | Nature has four great scenes – the seasons – and always the same actors: the sun, the moon and the stars. But it constantly changes the audience. 3 |
| • | I translated Dante’s “Inferno” because I discovered some of my ancestors in it! 3 |
| • | This world is a great banquet where nature invites all living beings, provided that the guests eat each other. 3 |
| • | Disbelief is a terrible luxury. 2 |
| • | The envy that speaks and shouts is always harmless. Be afraid of the envy that is silent. 2 |
| • | Reason is useless before the event and odious afterwards. |
| • | Nothing is more tiring than laziness. |
| • | A little philosophy takes away from religion and a lot leads back to it. |
| • | Speech is the garment of thought, and the explanation is its armor. |
| • | The methods are the habits of the spirit and the benefits of the memory. |
| • | The mischief of children is seldom actuated by malice; that of grown-up people always is. |
| • | Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way. |
| • | Women read each other at a single glance. |
| • | Vices are often habits rather than passions. |
| • | It is, no doubt, an immense advantage to have done nothing, but one should not abuse it. |
| • | Familiarity is the root of the closest friendships, as well as the deepest hatreds. |
| • | Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech. |
| • | It is easy for men to write and talk like philosophers, but to act with wisdom, there is the rub! |
| • | Generally speaking, there is more wit than talent in the world. Society swarms with witty people who lack talent. |
| • | Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent. |
| • | Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls. |
| • | The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it. |
| • | It has been very truly said that the mob has many heads, but no brains. |
| • | The woman gives herself only to her first love; to all the others, she takes it back! |
| • | Philosophy has answers only for individuals, but religion has answers for the masses. |
| • | In life as in chess, you can give up a tower, but not the queen. |
| • | Reason is made up of truths that must be told and truths that are not to be told. |
| • | Old age is not bearable without a great cause or a vice. |
| • | Men are born naked and live clothed, as they are born independent and live under laws. |
| • | We spend half our life remembering without understanding, and the other half understanding without remembering. |
| • | I have nothing to do, and that's what takes all my time. |
| • | It is easier for the imagination to compose a hell with pain than a paradise with pleasure. |
| • | Any man who rises isolates himself. |
| • | Unfortunately, there are virtues that you can only exercise when you are rich. |
| • | To achieve new things in literature, we must move expressions; in philosophy, you have to move ideas. |
| • | One of the properties of virtue is that it does not excite envy. |
| • | In every friend, there is half of a traitor. |
| • | The pyramids of Egypt are the oldest libraries of mankind. |
| • | Time is the shore of the mind; everything passes before him, and we believe that it is he who passes. |
| • | In republics, the people give their favor, never their trust. |
