Quote

It is vain and useless to survey everything that goes on in the world if our study does not help us mend our ways.

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Study
Help
Mend
Helping
Survey
Doe
Surveys
Everything
Useless
Way
Vain
World
Goes
Ways

More quotes by Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

Image
Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
We need not regard what good a friend has done us, but only his desire to do us good.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
It is base to take advantage of our rank or greatness by making fun of those placed beneath us in life.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Love is always master everywhere. It shapes the soul, the heart, and the mind wherever it exists. What matters is not the amount of love, but simply its existence in the mind and heart where it resides. And it truly appears that love is to the soul of the lover as the soul itself is to the body which it animates.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Wealth does not teach us to transcend the desire for wealth. The possession of many goods does not bring the repose of not desiring them.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
He who uses trickery should at least make use of his judgment to learn that he can scarcely hide treacherous conduct for very long among clever men who are determined to find him out, although they may pretend to be deceived in order to disguise their knowledge of his deceitfulness.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Good results are sometimes owing to a failure of judgment, because the faculty of judgment often hinders us from undertaking many things which would succeed if carried through without thinking.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
We prefer people who are trying to imitate us more than those who are trying to equal us. This is because imitation is a sign of esteem, but the desire to equal others is a sign of envy.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
The shame that comes to us as we see ourselves praised when we are unworthy of it often gives us the occasion to accomplish things that we might never have achieved without such undeserved praise.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Although most friendships that exist do not merit the name, we can nevertheless make use of them in accordance with our needs, as a kind of commercial venture based on uncertain foundations and in which we are very often deceived.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Self-love is almost always the ruling principle of our friendships. It makes us avoid all our obligations in unprofitable situations, and even causes us to forget our hostility towards our enemies when they become powerful enough to help us achieve fame or fortune.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
Image
Often the desire to appear competent impedes our ability to become competent, because we more anxious to display our knowledge than to learn what we do not know.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable