Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (31 May 1597 – 18 February 1654) was a French author, best known for his epistolary essays, which were widely circulated and read in his day. He was one of the founding members of Académie française.

• L'utilité publique se fait sou vent du dommage des particuliers.
  • Le Prince (1631), Chap. XVII.
  • Translation: Public utility is often served by the injury of individuals.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 101.

• Le venin guerit en quelque rencontre, et, ce cas-là, le venin n'est pas mauvais.
  • Aristippe, ou De la cour (1658), Discours VI.
  • Translation: Poison cures in certain contingencies, and in those cases poison is not an evil thing.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 139.

• Il n'y a personne qui soit tenu d'être habile; mais il n'y en a point qui ne soit obligé d'être bon.
  • Aristippe, ou De la cour (1658), Discours VII.
  • Translation: No one is bound to be clever, but every one is under an obligation to be good.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 66.

• La solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre, à qui on puisse dire de temps en temps, que c'est un belle chose.
  • Dissertations chrétiennes et morales (1665), XVIII: "Les plaisirs de la vie retirée".
  • Translation: Solitude is certainly a fine thing; but there is pleasure in having someone who can answer, from time to time, that it is a fine thing.

Socrate chrestien par le Sr De Balzac et autres œuvres du mesme Autheur (1652), Amsterdam, Pluymer.

• Il n'y a point d'enfants que nous aimions davantage que ceux qui naissent de notre esprit, et desquels nous sommes père et mère tout ensemble.
  • Socrate Chrétien, Discours VI.
  • Translation: There are no children of whom we are fonder than those that are born of our brains, to whom we are father and mother in one.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 67.

• Dieu est le poète et les hommes ne sont que les acteurs.
  • Socrate Chrétien, Discours VIII.
  • Translation: God is the poet, men are only the actors.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 42.

• Un peu d'esprit et beaucoup d'autorité, c'est ce qui a presque toujours gouverné le monde.
  • Socrate Chrétien, Discours VIII.
  • Translation: A little wit and plenty of authority, that is what has almost always governed the world.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 230.

• Rien n'est si voisin du haut style que le galimatias: le ridicule est une des extrémités du subtil.
  • Socrate Chrétien, Discours X.
  • Translation: Nothing so closely approaches a grand style as turgid nonsense: the ridiculous is one of the extremes of the subtle.
  • Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 202.

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Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac