‘We should comfort ourselves for not having fine talents, as we comfort ourselves for not having fine positions; we can be above both by the heart.’
‘Great men undertake great things because they are great, and fools because they think them easy.’
‘Would you say great things? Then first accustom yourself never to say false ones.’
‘Who can bear all, can dare all.’
‘Envy is confessed inferiority.’
‘Few sorrows are without remedy: despair is more deceptive than hope.’
‘Who gives his word lightly, breaks it.’
‘He who has great feeling, knows much.’
‘To the passions one owes the best things of the mind.’
Into that mad devotion to wit which was the snare of all his compeers, Vauvenargues never fell. He worshipped at the shrine of a diviner goddess called Truth. There is not a single example—even in his maxims, when the temptation would naturally be strongest—of his sacrificing fidelity to smartness.