Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Stanislas de Boufflers, fully Marquis Stanislas-Jean de Boufflers, Chevalier de Boufflers

French Poet, Writer and Statesman

"If we are told a man is religious, we still ask what are his morals."

"Ignorance is a prolonged infancy, only deprived of its charm."

"Constancy is a saint without a worshiper."

"How grand is victory, but how dear!"

"The higher we rise the more isolated we become; and all elevations are cold."

"Pleasure is the flower that fades; remembrance is the lasting perfume."

"Wisdom no more consists in science than happiness in wealth."

"It is not advice, but approval, which we crave."

"A pedant is a precocious old man."

"Conscience is the living law, and honor is to this law what piety is to religion."

"Glory is safe when it is deserved; it is not so with popularity; one lasts like a mosaic, the other is effaced like a crayon drawing."

"Jealousy is the sister of love, as the devil is the brother of angels."

"Men may be ungrateful, but the human race is not so."

"Morality has need, that it may be well received, of the mask of fable and the charm of poetry: truth pleases less when it is naked; and it is the only virgin whom we best like to see a little clothed."

"Oblivion is a second death, which great minds dread more than the first."

"The warrior who cultivates his mind polishes his arms."

"There is enjoyment even in sadness; and the same souvenirs which have produced long regrets may also soften them."

"Taste is the mind's tact."

"The greatest of all pleasures is to give pleasure to one whom we love."

"The zero of friendship's thermometer."