Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles Quotes

The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them. (p. 160).

The love of esteem is the life and soul of society; it unites us to one another : I want your approbation, you stand in need of mine. By forsaking the converse of men, we forsake the virtues necessary for society; for when one is alone, one is apt to grow negligent; the world forces you to have a guard over yourself. (p. 155).

The owning of faults is no hard matter for persons that find a fund within themselves to mend them. (p. 153).

We are not indeed obliged always to speak what we think, but we must always think what we speak. (p. 149).

We fancy frequently that we have no grudge but against the men, when indeed our malignity is owing to their places : persons in great posts never yet enjoyed them with the good liking of the world, which only begins to do them justice when they are out of place. (p. 148).

A Persian ambassador asked the wife of Leonidas, why they paid such honors to the women at Lacedemon? "It is," replied she, "because they have entirely the forming of the men." (p. 143).

Birth bestows less of honour than it demands; and to boast of ancestry is but to praise the merit of others. (p. 139).

A man that does not aim at raising to himself a great name, will never perform any great actions. And such as go carelessly on in the road of their professions suffer all the fatigues, without acquiring either the honour or recompense that naturally attend it. (p. 137).