Great Men Are Often Lonely

It takes two to speak the truth.
One to speak, and another to hear.

There is only one thing worse than being talked about.
And that is not being talked about.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe )

A man is as big as the things that make him angry.

Our enemy’s opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.

Hindsight is how we explain the mistakes that foresight could have avoided.

Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.
( Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues )

Originality consists not in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.

Great men are often lonely.
But perhaps that loneliness is part of their ability to create.
Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.

To the optimist, all doors have handles and hinges.
To the pessimist, all doors have locks and latches.

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 de Vauvenargues )

Idleness is not doing nothing.
Idleness is being free to do anything.

The ultimate test of whether you possess a sense of humour is your reaction when someone tells you you don’t.

The best audience a man can have is the person he sees in his shaving mirror every morning.

Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.

We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without compromising ourselves.
( Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues )

A wise man keeps his conversation light and his background dark.

Cowards are cruel, but the brave are merciful.

Just because you can argue better doesn’t mean you’re right.

Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities.

We discover in others what others hide from us, and we recognise in others what we hide from ourselves.
( Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues )

Young men think themselves wise enough as drunken men think themselves sober enough.

Efficiency is a highly developed form of laziness.

When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.

Don’t tell people your troubles.
You might be one of theirs.

The idle always have a mind to do something.
( Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues )

When someone says nothing it doesn’t necessarily mean they have nothing to say.

It is better to do something and regret it afterwards.
Than not to do it and regret not having done it.

There is nothing so small that it can’t be blown up out of proportion.

There comes a point in our life when we realise who matters.
And who never did matter, and who won’t matter anymore.
We learn who is fake and who is true.

Knowledge makes one laugh, but wealth makes one dance.

It is not true that equality is a law of nature.
Nature has no equality.
Its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.
( Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues )

Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life.
If you continue to believe as you have always believed.
You will continue to act as you have always acted.
If you continue to act as you have always acted.
You will continue to get what you have always gotten.
If you want different results in your life or your work..
All you have to do is change your mind.

Silence is never more golden than when you keep it long enough to get all the facts.

The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age.

Your body is like a superbly tuned automobile.
If you take care of it wisely and maintain it properly.
It will eventually break down.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.
( Simone Weil )

To take a bribe is to sell your liberty.

There are more things told than are true and more things true than are told.

He is not his own man who takes another man’s bribe.

Justice is truth in action.

Those that make the best use of their time have none to spare.

Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.
( Simone Weil )

Better an open enemy than a false friend.

To thine own self be true.

We have to learn to live.
Calm amidst the trouble and the turmoil of the day.
Through chaos and confusion.
We must go the quiet way.

Seem not greater than thou art.
Be what you seem and seem what you are.

Life only comes around once.
So do whatever makes you happy.
And be with those who make you smile.

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
( Simone Weil )

Possessiveness is friendship’s worst enemy.

The truly generous is the truly wise.

If you don’t say it.
They can’t repeat it.

Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.

The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity.

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing.
It is the person crushed who feels what is happening.
Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
( Simone Weil )

We may give advice but we cannot give conduct.

Music heals the wounds of loneliness.

In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.

To be irritated by criticism is to acknowledge it was deserved.

Always have a good bed and a good pair of shoes.
For when you’re not in one you’re in the other.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
( Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues )

Nothing seems to change in our day to day living.
But when we look back, everything is different.

Don’t waste your time trying to explain who you are to those who make no effort to understand you.

Don’t let your food get cold worrying about what’s on the plate of others.

Just as we can know the ocean because it always tastes of salt.
We can recognise enlightenment because it always tastes of freedom.
( Buddha )

Just two things often define a person.
Their patience when they have nothing.
And their attitude when they have everything.

May the right doors open for you at the right time.
To lead you exactly where you are meant to be

Most people consider honesty a virtue.
Yet not everyone wants to hear the truth.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it.
Basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.
( Charles Bukowski )