Pierre Charron
Pierre Charron
worthy obligation
To owe an obligation to a worthy friend is a happiness, and can be no disparagement.
men contemplation subjects
The proper Science and Subject for Man's Contemplation is Man himself. [Fr., La vraie science et le vrai etude de l'homme c'est l'homme.]
pain opposites pleasure
Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite are contrived to be constant companions.
atheist odds laughing
All religions are pieced together out of elements which seem so at odds with reason that any intelligence laughs at them.
wise men mind
Wise men mingle mirth with their cares, as a help either to forget or overcome them; but to resort to intoxication for the ease of one's mind is to cure melancholy by madness.
wise learning men
The most excellent and divine counsel, the best and most profitable advertisement of all others, but the least practised, is to study and learn how to know ourselves. This is the foundation of wisdom and the highway to whatever is good. . . . God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.
passion may decline
It is certainly much easier wholly to decline a passion than to keep it within just bounds and measures; and that which few can moderate almost anybody may prevent.
giving advice lost-friendship
The advice of friends must be received with a judicious reserve; we must not give ourselves up to it and follow it blindly, whether right or wrong.
blood mouths vapor
Those who have nothing else to recommend them to the respect of others but only their blood, cry it up at a great rate, and have their mouth perpetually full of it. They swell and vapor, and you are sure to hear of their families and relations every third word.
wise men deeds
God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.
mind hardship fortune
Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best.
believe easiest french-philosopher
The easiest way to be cheated is to believe yourself to be more cunning than others.