Luc de Clapiers

Vice stirs up war, virtue fights.

The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.

The law cannot equalize mankind in spite of nature.

There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Patience is the art of hoping.