“Rien n’est beau que le vrai. Le vrai seul est aimable.”
Nothing so beautiful as what is true,
That it is only lovely is its due.
I very willingly own, that this joy and mirth is nothing else than the effect of our imagination.
Full well I’m satisfied ’tis nothing all
But a deceitful hope, less solid far,
A thousand times, than is the moving sand;
But are not all things so with wretched man?
All things soon pass away like rapid streams
Which hasten to the sea, where lost for ever