Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert quotes

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert, was a French writer, moralist, and salonnière renowned for her literary salons in Paris. Her works and gatherings played a key role in shaping Enlightenment thought and the development of French intellectual society. She is remembered as a pioneering figure who championed literature, philosophy, and the advancement of women’s intellectual life. Here are 23 of her quotes:

Would you be esteemed? live with persons that are estimable.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

The love of esteem is the life and soul of society; it unites us to one another : I want your approbation, you stand in need of mine. By forsaking the converse of men, we forsake the virtues necessary for society; for when one is alone, one is apt to grow negligent; the world forces you to have a guard over yourself.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

One of the duties of old-age, is the management of time. The less that remains to us, the more valuable we ought to consider it.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

Shame is a secret pride; and pride is an error with regard to one's own worth, and an injustice with regard to what one has a mind to appear to others.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

Take care that your studies influence your manners.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

We fancy frequently that we have no grudge but against the men, when indeed our malignity is owing to their places : persons in great posts never yet enjoyed them with the good liking of the world, which only begins to do them justice when they are out of place.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

To form a complete judgment of any one, we ought to have seen him acting the last part.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

It is not always our faults that ruin us, but the manner of our conduct after we have committed them.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

To live in perpetual employment, is to travel rapidly through life. Tranquility lengthens our existence.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

Birth bestows less of honour than it demands; and to boast of ancestry is but to praise the merit of others.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

The time of Christians is the price with which they purchase eternity.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

We are not indeed obliged always to speak what we think, but we must always think what we speak.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

Your tribunal is seated in your own breast, why then should you seek it elsewhere?

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

The world steals us from ourselves and solitude restores us. The world is composed of a herd, which are ever flying from themselves.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

The owning of faults is no hard matter for persons that find a fund within themselves to mend them.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

A Persian ambassador asked the wife of Leonidas, why they paid such honors to the women at Lacedemon? "It is," replied she, "because they have entirely the forming of the men."

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

A man that does not aim at raising to himself a great name, will never perform any great actions. And such as go carelessly on in the road of their professions suffer all the fatigues, without acquiring either the honour or recompense that naturally attend it.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

We live with [our defects] as we do with the perfumes that we wear, we do not smell them ; they only incommode others.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert

The principal merit which should be required in our friends, is virtue : It is that which assures us they are capable of friendship, and worthy of it : expect nothing from your connections, when they have not this foundation. (pp. 54-55).

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles, marquise de Lambert