Best 41 quotes of Charles Maurice De Talleyrand on MyQuotes

A clever woman often compromises her husband; a stupid woman only compromises herself.

A court is an assembly of noble and distinguished beggars.

A married man with a family will do anything for money.

An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.

A woman will sometimes forgive the man who tries to seduce her, but never the man who misses an opportunity when offered.

Beauty, devoid of grace, is a mere hook without the bait.

Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.

Espresso is to Italy, what champagne is to France.

I found there a country with thirty-two religions and only one sauce.

If we go on explaining we shall cease to understand one another.

If you wish to be popular in society consent to be taught many things you already know.

In a novel, the author gives the leading character intelligence and distinction. Fate goes to less trouble: mediocrities play a part in great events simply from happening to be there.

In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.

It is not an event; it is a piece of news.

It is the beginning of the end. [Fr., C'est le commencement de al fin.]

Love is a reality which is born in the fairy region of romance.

Love of glory can only create a great hero; contempt of glory creates a great man.

Mistrust first impulses; they are nearly always good.

Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on that subject.

Only a man who has loved a woman of genius can appreciate what happiness there is in loving a fool.

Politics is the systematic cultivation of hatred.

Regimes may fall and fail, but I do not.

She is such a good friend that she would throw all her acquaintances into the water for the pleasure of fishing them out again.

Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour.

Society is divided into two classes: the shearers and the shorn. We should always be with the former against the latter.

Speech has been given to man to disguise his thoughts.

Suave molecules of Mocha stir up your blood, without causing excess heat; the organ of thought receives from it a feeling of sympathy; work becomes easier and you will sit down without distress to your principal repast which will restore your body and afford you a calm, delicious night.

The art of putting the right men in the right places is first in the science of government; but that of finding places for the discontented is the most difficult.

The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.

The bold defiance of a woman is the certain sign of her shame, - when she has once ceased to blush, it is because she has too much to blush for.

There are many people who have the gift, or failing, of never understanding themselves. I have been unlucky enough, or perhaps fortunate enough to have received the opposite gift.

The reputation of a man is like his shadow, gigantic when it precedes him, and pigmy in its proportions when it follows.

The rich man despises those who flatter him too much, and hates those who do not flatter him at all.

Those who did not live during the years close to 1789 do not know the pleasure of living.

Those who have not lived in the eighteenth century, in the years before the Revolution do not know the sweetness of living and cannot imagine what it was like to have happiness in life.

Too much sensibility creates unhappiness and too much insensibility creates crime.

To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.

War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.

What clever man has ever needed to commit a crime? Crime is the last resort of political half-wits.

Wherever there's trouble, look for a priest.

Without freedom of the press, there can be no representative government.