Famous quotes

Collection of the best phrases and famous quotes from the most prominent authors.

Claude Adrien Helvétius

Claude Adrien Helvétius

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Pleasure and pain are the only two springs that move and will move the world.

Hateful to me, like the gates of Hades, is the man who conceals one thing in his heart and says another.

Having raised the wall against the will of the immortal gods, it was not meant to stand for a long time.

There is nothing as sweet as one's own homeland and parents, even if one has the most opulent mansion in a foreign and distant land.

Fortune is like a garment: too loose it burdens us, and too tight it oppresses us.

Genius is revealed in adverse fortune; in prosperity, it is concealed.

Like the generation of leaves, so is the generation of men. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, and the forest, greening, produces others when spring arrives: in the same way, one human generation is born and another perishes.

Miserable mortals who, like leaves, are either flourishing and vigorous as they eat the fruits of the earth, or become lifeless and die.

The lofty gifts of the gods cannot be easily destroyed by mortal men, nor yield to their forces.