Pierre Charron
Pierre Charron
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.
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.
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.
cities bird soul
Great towns are but a large sort of prison to the soul; like cages to birds, or pounds to beasts.
plus folly
The shortest follies are the best. [Fr., Les plus courtes folies sont les meilleures.]
gratitude mind together
Gratitude is a virtue disposing the mind to an inward sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together with a readiness to return the same, or the like, as occasions of the doer of it shall require, and the abilities of the receiver extend to. He who receives a good turn, should never forget it: he who does one, should never remember it.
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.
humble gay men
Mutability is the badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike. Now he is for marrying; and now a mistress is preferred to a wife. Now he is ambitious and aspiring; presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he. This hour he squanders his money away; the next he turns miser. Sometimes he is frugal and serious; at other times profuse, airy, and gay.
worthy obligation
To owe an obligation to a worthy friend is a happiness, and can be no disparagement.
eye men long
He that boasts of his ancestors confesses that he has no virtue of his own. No person ever lived for our honor; nor ought that to be reputed ours, which was long before we had a being; for what advantage can it be to a blind man to know that his parents had good eyes? Does he see one whit the better?
folly
The shortest follies are the best.
science men study
The true science and study of mankind is man.
relationship thanksgiving gratitude
He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it.