Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect.
Just as We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness. So too we never taste sadness completely, as things could always be worse in some way and for this we can be grateful.
How delicious is pleasure after torment!
When a woman has the gift of silence she possesses a quality above the vulgar. It is a gift of Heaven seldom bestowed; without a little miracle it cannot be accomplished; and Nature suffers violence when Heaven puts a woman in the humor of observing silence.
Kindness acts Not always as you think; a hated hand Renders it odious.
I have deserved neither so much honor or so much disgrace.
I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived.
Love lives on hope, and dies when hope is dead; It is a flame which sinks for lack of fuel.
I am master of myself as of the universe, so I am; so I wish to be.
Flee an enemy who knows your weakness.
A good memory is needed after one has lied.
Self-love is the source of all our other loves.
It is a law, of the gods which is never broken, to sell somewhat dearly the great benefits which they confer on us.
How much must I overcome before I triumph?
When the patient loves his disease, how unwilling he is to allow a remedy to be applied.
He who forgives readily only invites offense.
It is a crime against the State to be powerful enough to commit one.
Who is all-powerful should fear everything.
Have others fear you, and I will have no fear.
The man who pardons easily courts injury.
It is an imprudence common to kings to listen to too much advice and to err in their choice.
For souls nobly born, valor doesn't await the passing of years
Do your duty and leave the rest to heaven.
He who can live in infamy is unworthy of life.
Each instant of life is a step toward death.
They who overcome their desires once can overcome them always.
Rome is no longer in Rome, it is here where I am.
Love is a tyrant sparing none.
What destroys one man preserves another.
Obedience is a hard profession.
Every man of courage is a man of his word.
He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases! [Lat., Qui se laisse outrager, merite qu'on l'outrage Et l'audace impunie enfle trop un courage.]
The universe has no prince or king that it [Rome] would consider equal to its humblest citizen.
He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be.
A monarch must sometimes rule even himself: he who wants everything must risk very little.
We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.
In relating our misfortunes, we often feel them lightened.
And the combat ceased, for want of combatants.
All great virtues become great men. [Fr., Toutes grandes vertus conviennent aux grands hommes.]
Force is legitimate where gentleness avails not.
Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.
Happiness seems made to be shared. [Fr., Le bonheur semble fait pour etre partage.]
Treachery is noble when aimed at tyranny.
Oh, how sweet it is to pity the fate of an enemy who can no longer threaten us!
To win without risk is to triumph without glory.
All great virtues become great men.
Ambition, having reached the summit, longs to descend.
Those who resolve to conquer or die, are rarely conquered.
He who plays advisor is no longer ambassador.
One half of my life has put the other half in the grave.
In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate.
I love you much less than my God, but much more than myself.
We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.
Ambition becomes displeasing when it is once satiated; there is a reaction; and as our spirit, till our last sigh, is always aiming toward some object, it falls back on itself, having nothing else on which to rest; and having reached the summit, it longs to descend.
It is the guilt, not the scaffold, which constitutes the shame.
He who allows me to rule is in fact my master
Heaven often regulates effects by their causes, and pays the wicked what they have deserved.
The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.
Oh rage! Oh despair! Oh age, my enemy!
Violence is just, where kindness is vain.
Clemency is the noblest trait which can reveal a true monarch to the world.
He who despises life is his life's master.
The king, just and prudent, wants only those things which he can get.
Brave men are brave from the very first.
If you betray me, can I take a better revenge than to love the person you hate?
As for our gods, we have a few too many to be true.
Those who easily forgive invite offenses.
I would tell you I love you, Sir, if I knew what it was to love.
It matters more how one gives than what one gives
Ambition displeases when it has been sated ... having reached the peak, it aspires to descend.
Omnipotence is bought with ceaseless fear.
A true king is neither husband nor father; he considers his throne and nothing else.
I am young, it is true; but in noble souls valor does not wait for years.
One is often guilty by being too just.
The greater the risk, the sweeter the fruit.
By speaking of our misfortunes we often relieve them. [Fr., A raconter ses maux souvent on les soulage.]
It is hard to hate what one has loved, and a half-extinguished fire is soon relit.
Master of the universe but not of myself, I am the only rebel against my absolute power.
He who fears not death fears not a threat.
Heaven absolves all crimes committed to gain a throne Once Heaven gives it to us.
I agree to, or rather aspire to, my doom.
Desire increases when fulfillment is postponed.
Liberty may be of no more use Than stirring up the flame of civil wars; Then, by disorder fatal to the world, One wants no king, the other wants no equal.
One doesn't wish to see those to whom one owes so much.
Your virtue raises your glory above your crime.
He who pardons easily invites offense.
These flattering mirrors reflect imperfectly what is within; the countenance is often a gay deceiver. What defects of mind lie hidden under its beauty! What fair exteriors conceal base souls!
The fire which seems extinguished often slumbers beneath the ashes.
There are secret ties, there are sympathies, by the sweet relationship of which souls that are well matched attach themselves to each other, and are affected by I know not what, which cannot be explained
The greater the effort, the greater the glory.
Danger breeds best on too much confidence.
It is the crime not the scaffold which is the disgrace.
My sweetest hope is to lose hope
A liar is always lavish of oaths.
He who does not fear death cares naught for threats.
He who is hated by all can not expect to live long.
If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people only more so.
Patience and time conquer all things.
Time is a great manager: it arranges things well.
All evils are equal when they are extreme.
To he who avenges a father, nothing is impossible
As great as kings may be, they are what we are: they can err like other men.
Deceit is the game of petty spirits, and that is by nature a woman's quality.
He who has resolved to conquer or die is seldom conquered; such noble despair perishes with difficulty.
My reason, it's true, controls my feelings, but whatever its authority, it doesn't rule them so much as tyrannize them.
Guess if you can, choose if you dare.
Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse.
Be it only for a day, it is still a glory without equal to be master of the world just that day.
Generosity is the accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants.
When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory in the triumph.
As our self-interests differ, so do our feelings.
To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster; either condemn or crown your hatred.
A liar is full of oaths.
Your Christians, whom one persecutes in vain, have something in them that surpasses the human. They lead a life of such innocence,that the heavens owe them some recognition: that they arise the stronger the more they are beaten down is hardly the result of common virtues.
One often calms one's grief by recounting it.
Good fortune leads one to the highest glory, But to renounce it calls for equal courage.
The worst of all States is the democratic State.
I can be forced to live without happiness, but I will never consent to live without honor.
Every brave man is a man of his word; to such base vices he cannot stoop, and shuns more than death the shame of lying.
I don't know how to defend myself: surprised innocence cannot imagine being under suspicion.
Whoever can do as he pleases, commands when he entreats.
Happiness seems made to be shared.
An example is often a deceptive mirror, and the order of destiny, so troubling to our thoughts, is not always found written in things past
Your heart is mine; there I reign. I am content.
Peace is produced by war.
