It is easier to say new things than to reconcile those which have already been said.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
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Doug Belshaw
Too much secrecy in our affairs and too little are equally indicative of a weak spirit.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
[I]t is one of the illusions of youth to believe that everything can be done by our own strength and intelligence, and to desire to rise by our own industry, or by paths that merit alone cannot open to men without fortune.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
Fortune can make sport of the wisdom of brave men, but it is not in her power to break their courage.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
We must not be timid from a fear of committing faults: the greatest fault of all is to deprive oneself of experience.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
Habit is everything – even in love.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
It is not exactly truth which is must wanting in men’s ideas, but precision and exactitude. Absolute falseness is seldom met with in their thoughts, and truth, pure and complete, is still more rarely to be found in their expressions.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
Men are but to be judged by what they do not know, but by what they know, and by the manner in which they know it.
Vauvenargues
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Doug Belshaw
However we may be reproached for our vanity we have never sometimes to be assured of our merits.
Vauvenargues
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