Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Madame de Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné

French Writer and Aristocrat

"Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it."

"Faith creates the virtues in which it believes."

"There is no person who is not dangerous for some one."

"Gloom and sadness are poison to us, the origin of hysterics, which is a disease of the imagination caused by vexation, and supported by fear."

"Ah! as you say, we should slip over many thoughts and act as though we did not perceive them."

"Blather, do not you, my little one, but if you change it to fold to love yourself to just be yourself thinking that only the care that is related to you, you're my life sweetness that never anyone not love so much: it's the repetition bore himself."

"But the truth is there in your heart."

"Exceedingly glad to pregnant, my heart: thank you, and thankfully Mr Grignan. Then enter your wondering what might account for the benefit of ”nm‚rs‚klet‚nek or true feelings of your application and whether you're not happy whether it can come and go for a while, and you can walk in the Provence, between the orange trees, and when we will be together, no need to worry about falling over and give birth."

"Fortune is always on the side of the largest battalions."

"Have mercy on me, take care of yourself, if you value your life. So convincingly asserted that likes to hope, at least for my sake will beware of danger."

"He says he would be happy if just once they enter the room and hear him speak. Not to mention that I would like to see or hear you, they want to talk to you! Real obsession is with me, unceasing torment myself with it and BANVELR mind that at the time I did not look, do not listen to you satisfy and it seems to me, not really wasted the opportunities, all the same, I cannot calm down, I'm crazy, that's the plain truth, but the bolonds gomat itself bound to love. I do not understand how someone could be so much to think about. Well, you never run out of these thoughts? Never, but when I no longer think about."

"Heaven bless you, my dear, beloved child: you can love someone so much"

"I bet that cell has no idea how much I love her."

"I cannot tell how much I esteem and admire your good and happy temperament. What folly not to take advantage of circumstances, and enjoy gratefully the consolations which God sends us after the afflictive dispensations which He sometimes sees proper to make us feel! It seems to me to be a proof of great wisdom to submit with resignation to the storm, and enjoy the calm when it pleases Him to give it use again."

"I dislike clocks with second-hands; they cut up life into too small pieces."

"I fear nothing so much as a man who is witty all day long."

"Ideal beauty is a fugitive which is never located."

"If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification; time takes away as much as it gives."

"If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?"

"If you love someone, above all, to the smallest, each other completely meaningless circumstance it is important:. Told this a thousand times, and it's true"

"If you take this state for a long time, my life would be nice too,. Sorrows, but soon they come back, it should enjoy it while it lasts"

"I'm here in my room, all alone, I am glad so that you can safely do I, which is the best state."

"In all nations truth is the most sublime, the most simple, the most difficult, and yet the most natural thing."

"Ingratitude calls forth reproaches as gratitude brings renewed kindnesses."

"It is my heart."

"It is now more or less, if need be, I can pull myself together, and sometimes four or five hours is all that I behave like another, but nothing put back the former state I: a memory location or a word, a little reflection, and mainly for its leaves, even mine, when I write them, someone who talks about himself:. many cliff, which shatters the self-control, and that there are plenty cliff"

"It is only up to you, fills my life in joy or pain; himself know, and everyone else strange. My brain is close to some of the same things, but my heart only knows one. All this can determine how sensitive and vulnerable I am, and you could feel when unjustly marginalized by his own heart."

"It is the fine rain that soaks us through."

"It is thus that we walk through the world like the blind, not knowing whither we are going, regarding as bad what is good, regarding as good what is bad, and ever in entire ignorance."

"It's always nice to start the first attack."

"Let's embrace and love: I always say this, because I feel it all the time."

"Occupation is the best safeguard for women under all circumstances?mental or physical, or both. Cupid extinguishes his torch in the atmosphere of industry."

"Oh, baby, how I want to see a bit, to hear his voice, to kiss, at least in passing, if not otherwise have been possible! Well, in vain, to suppress such thoughts do not know myself. I really miss me, darling:. Agonize my heart and soul so much since we broke apart to feel real physical torture"

"Racine will pass away like the taste for coffee."

"Reason bears disgrace, courage combats it, patience surmounts it."

"Someone said the other day, do not know if I mentioned this to yourself. Fact that the value of a heart, the best shows you how you can love"

"Sweetheart, you are so praying to run to time, and you soon see each other, not sure what to do, and then carefully take a knock: Time willingly disobey, but also what skills and when they want to be of no consequence to him. At the time, I fell into this trap, and then regretted it,., And although I was not wearing it at the time, like others, deprived thousands of small pleasure, too ‚szrev‚tetve, depends on how quickly"

"The human heart will never wrinkle."

"The letters you read and you write, this is the most I do, everything else takes a back seat occupation, nothing phenomenon appears next to it. The one who loves you, like me, found the superficial affection for each other."

"The world has no long injustices."

"There is no one who does not represent a danger to someone."

"Thicken your religion a little. It is evaporating altogether by being subtilized."

"We like so much to talk of ourselves that we are never weary of those private interviews with a lover during the course of whole years, and for the same reason the devout like to spend much time with their confessor; it is the pleasure of talking of themselves even though it be to talk ill."

"We satisfied ourselves the other day that there was no real ill in life except severe bodily pain; everything else is the child of the imagination, and depends on our thoughts; all other ills find a remedy, either from time or moderation, or strength of mind."

"Well, eventually I realized. Should glide above all, and not to entrust ourselves in our thoughts and hearts moods"

"Well, kiss, my baby. If you can, continue to love, it's the only thing that I wish for myself, to reconcile my soul makes. You of course a lot more wish:. A word than a century, everything revolves around you, yourself, for you, is by itself"

"What do you say, dear child, this endless letter? If I wanted to, in advance throughout the morning."

"What's the matter, Miss? Why so sad? For what is more strange is happening to us? We loved each other and now we do not love, loyalty is not a virtue in young people. Wise to forget the past and we talk and behave as before"

"Why do we discover faults so much more readily than perfections?"

"You ask, my dear child, I still love so much to life. Well, I confess to you, there sure is enough pain and bitterness, but a more terrible death, I give, and I feel so intolerable that it has all come to an end, if I could, happily bounce. I live out of obligation, willy-nilly: No one asked if I wanted to come into this world, then it is time to get out of it, which is a drag, and you wonder how I look? Where? What gate? And when? Under what circumstances? Thousands of torture crucifies, darkened soul die? Or stroke worth? Accident takes out? I'll give that number to God? What can I do for you before the judgment seat? Will my fears I will return to it? Will I feel anything is out of the terror? What do you hope for? Admit one to paradise? Letasz¡tanak to hell? What contingencies! What an agony! No crazier things than the uncertainty but not natural either, and that I live in such folly, very easy to understand. Throughout dizzy these issues, and so horrified of death, that life is not already hate because of the thorns manhandle, but rather because of the death joins. I will say this, I want to live forever. The world did not, but if I had to choose, I prefer to die in my nurse's arms:.'s Been spared a lot of trouble, and are confident and more delivered to heaven, but enough about me"