Antoine Rivarol Quotes

Opinions, theories, and systems pass by turns over the grindstone of time, which at first gives them brilliancy and sharpness, but finally wears them out.

Silence never yet betrayed any one!

Women read each other at a single glance.

Oblivion is the rule and fame the exception, of humanity.

Vices are often habits rather than passions.

Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice.

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes.

Familiarity is the root of the closest friendships, as well as the interests hatreds.

Indolence and stupidity are first cousins.

The absolute ruler may be a Nero, but he is sometimes a Titus or Marc Aurelius; the people is often Nero, but never Marc Aurelius.

It is a notable circumstance that mothers who are themselves open to severe comments as to their, moral character, are generally most solicitous as to the virtuous behavior of their daughters.

The mischief of children is seldom actuated by malice; that of grown-up people always is.

It is not he who searches for praise who finds it.

That which happens to the soil when it ceases to be cultivated by the social man happens to man himself when he foolishly forsakes society for solitude; the brambles grow up in his desert heart.

Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future.

The methods that help a man acquire a fortune are the very ones that keep him from enjoying it.

It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.

There are men who gain from their wealth only the fear of losing it.

The only thing wealth does for some people is to make them worry about losing it.

The despotism of will in ideas is styled plan, project, character, obstinacy; its despotism in desires is called passion.

Youth is not the era of wisdom; let us therefore have due consideration.

The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy.

History is only time furnished with dates and rich with events.

There are some women who are flirts upon principle; they consider it their duty to make themselves as pleasing as possible to every one.

Poverty treads close upon the heels of great and unexpected wealth.

Mutability is written upon all things.

There is even the dignity of vice.

Wrong is wrong; no fallacy can hide it, no subterfuge cover it so shrewdly but that the All-Seeing One will discover and punish it.

If poverty makes man groan, he yawns in opulence. When fortune exempts us from labor, nature overwhelms us with time.

It has been very truly said that the mob has many heads, but no brains.

To be ungrateful is to be unnatural. The head may be thus guilty, not the heart.

Cats don't caress us-they caress themselves on us.