10 quotes
How many deserters there are from the rigours of virtue, how few from the cause of love!
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
Nothing inspires more courage in a woman than fearlessness in the man she loves.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
Nothing is more wonderful, or honours virtue more, than the confidence with which we turn to people whose probity we have long been acquainted with.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
A father's heart is nature's finest work.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
The foolishness of the great and the wealthy is an excellent source of revenue for the humble.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
Do you really think one can be truly loving when one is short of bread?
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
We should measure our wealth according to the means we have of satisfying our desires.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
The portrait I have to paint is of…an ambiguous character, a mixture of virtues and vices, a perpetual contrast between good impulses and bad actions.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
One cannot reflect for long on moral precepts without being astonished at seeing them, at one and the same time, revered and neglected, and without wondering what could be the reason for this vagary of the human heart, whereby it clings to principles of goodness and perfection from which it deviates in practice.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)
Only experience or example can rationally determine which way the heart should incline. Now experience is not an advantage that it is open to everyone to acquire, since it depends on the various situations in which, by chance, we find ourselves. For many people, then, this leaves only example that can offer any guidance as to how they should exercise virtue.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)