"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire."

Jean de La Fontaine Literature See all quotes by Jean de La Fontaine →

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More by Jean de La Fontaine

“We then saw what St. Jerome said of those who serve God and those who serve the world: "Each to the other we seem insane": Invicem insanire videmur. There is a never-ending duel between the two.”

“To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism — this is the art of living.”

“People must help one another; it is nature's law.”

“No path of flowers leads to glory.”

“Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.”

“They are too green", he said, "and only good for fools.”

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"Each of us assumes everyone else knows what HE is doing. They all assume we know what WE are doing. We don't … Nothing is going on and nobody knows what it is. Nobody is concealing anything except the…"

— Philip K. Dick

Literature1928–1982

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"She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its…"

— George Eliot

Journalism1819–1880

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"The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a f…"

— André Maurois

opinion journalism1885–1967

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"Every man worships the dollar, and is down before his shrine from morning to night... Other men, the world over, worship regularly at the shrine with matins and vespers, nones and complines, and whate…"

— Anthony Trollope

Politics1815–1882

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