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I do not approve the maxim which desires a man to know a little of everything. Superficial knowledge, knowledge without principles, is almost always useless and sometimes harmful knowledge.

Luc de Clapiers

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Luc de Clapiers
Age: 31 †
Born: 1715
Born: August 6
Died: 1747
Died: May 28
Essayist
Military Personnel
Philosopher
Writer
Aix
Desire
Harmful
Littles
Maxims
Little
Superficial
Everything
Desires
Without
Useless
Sometimes
Principles
Always
Almost
Maxim
Men
Knowledge
Approve

More quotes by Luc de Clapiers

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All that causes one man to differ from another is a very slight thing. What is it that is the origin of beauty or ugliness, health or weakness, ability or stupidity? A slight difference in the organs, a little more or a little less bile. Yet this more or less is of infinite importance to men and when they think otherwise they are mistaken.
Luc de Clapiers
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Courage is adversity's lamp.
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Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits.
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You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.
Luc de Clapiers
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We are very wrong to think that some fault or other can exclude virtue, or to consider the alliance of good and evil as a monstrosity or an enigma.
Luc de Clapiers
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Men dissimulate their dearest, most constant, and most virtuous inclination from weakness and a fear of being condemned.
Luc de Clapiers
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Obscurity is the kingdom of error.
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Simple truths are a relief from grand speculations.
Luc de Clapiers
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The maxims of men reveal their characters.
Luc de Clapiers
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Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love.
Luc de Clapiers
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The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.
Luc de Clapiers
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No one likes to be pitied for his faults.
Luc de Clapiers
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Truth is not so threadbare as speech, because fewer people can make use of it.
Luc de Clapiers
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More are taken in by hope than by cunning.
Luc de Clapiers
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If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.
Luc de Clapiers
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There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.
Luc de Clapiers
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We are almost always guilty of the hate we encounter.
Luc de Clapiers
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Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.
Luc de Clapiers
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Few men have depth enough to hear or tell the truth.
Luc de Clapiers
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We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.
Luc de Clapiers