Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Quotes

24 quotes in 327 categories

• Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.
• La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid
• One must not permit oneself excesses, except with persons whom one wishes soon to leave.
• Cast between the extremes of happiness and misfortune, uncertainty is a cruel torment.
• I assure you that the world is not so amusing as we imagined.
• Either you have a rival or you don't. If you have one, you must please in order to be preferred to him, and if you…
• Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I'm tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and…
• I can see that you're in love, but only in a very narrow sense. It's the love of someone that finds charms and qualities in…
• Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just…
• When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.
• A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives.
• Marquise de Merteuil: I've distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die.
• It has become necessary for me to have this woman, so as to save myself from the ridicule of being in love with her: for…
• How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach.
• You may conquer her love of God: you will never overcome her fear of the devil.
• I see you are already as timid as a slave: you might as well be in love.
• Don't you remember that love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature?
• ...it is not for the illusion of a moment to govern the choice of a lifetime.
• I willingly allow that money does not guarantee happiness; but it must also be allowed that it makes happiness a great deal easier to achieve.
• It was there, in particular, that I confirmed the truth that love, which we cry up as the source of our pleasures, is nothing more…

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