Pierre Charron Quotations

Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best.

God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.

Riches should be admitted into our houses, but not into our hearts; we may take them into our possession, but not into our affections.

Gratitude is a duty none can be excused from, because it is always at our own disposal.

Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite, are yet so contrived by nature as to be constant companions; and it is a fact that the same motions and muscles of the face are employed both in laughing and crying.

[Envy not for...] Whatever difference there may appear to be in men's fortunes, there is still a certain compensation of good and ill in all, that makes them equal.

He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it.

The shortest follies are the best.

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?