Antoine de Rivarol (26 June 1753 – 11 April 1801) was a Royalist French writer during the Revolutionary era. He was briefly married to the translator Louisa Henrietta de Rivarol.
It is, no doubt, an immense advantage to have done nothing, but one should not abuse it.
There is even the dignity of vice.
Gold like the sun, which melts wax, but hardens clay, expands great souls.
The cunning tempter, by avoiding the grossness of vice, often silences objections.
Reason is an historian, but the passions are actors.
Oblivion is the rule and fame the exception, of humanity.
Obtuseness is sometimes a virtue.
The mischief of children is seldom actuated by malice; that of grown-up people always is.
The modest man has everything to gain, and the arrogant man everything to lose; for modesty has always to deal with generosity, and arrogance with envy.
To be ungrateful is to be unnatural. The head may be thus guilty, not the heart.
Extremes produce reaction. Beware that our boasted civilization does not lapse into barbarism.
It is easy for men to write and talk like philosophers, but to act with wisdom, there is the rub!
There are men who gain from their wealth only the fear of losing it.
True felicity consists of its own consciousness.
It is a notable circumstance that mothers who are themselves open to severe comments as to their, moral character, are generally most solicitous as to the virtuous behavior of their daughters.
Of every ten persons who talk about you, nine will say something bad, and the tenth will say something good in a bad way.
Mutability is written upon all things.
Silence never yet betrayed any one!
Wrong is wrong; no fallacy can hide it, no subterfuge cover it so shrewdly but that the All-Seeing One will discover and punish it.
Vices are often habits rather than passions.