The Letters Of Madame De Sevigne To Her Daughter And Friends Quotes

“Think,—but no; think of nothing, leave the business of thought to me, in my long shady alleys, whose dreary melancholy will add to mine; I shall walk there long enough before I shall find the treasure I had with me the last time I was in them.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“How strange is the force of imagination! it represents things as if they were actually present to us; we consider them so, and to a heart like mine, this is death. I know not where to hide myself from you.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“Love me for my affection, love me even for my weakness; I am satisfied myself. I prefer my feelings to all the fine sentiments of Seneca or Epictetus.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I experience every day the truth of what you once told me, that there are certain thoughts which are not to be dwelt upon, but passed over as lightly as possible, unless we would be forever in tears: that is my case: for there is not a place in the house which does not give a stab to my heart when I see it: but your room especially deals a deadly blow from every part of it.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“As for me, I appear to myself quite naked, divested of everything that made me agreeable: I am ashamed to appear in society; and notwithstanding the endeavors that have been used to bring me back to it, I have latterly been like one just come out of the woods; nor could I be otherwise. Few are worthy of understanding what I feel; I have sought those chosen few, and avoided all others.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I am going to tell you a thing the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most miraculous, the most magnificent, the most confounding, the most unheard of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most unforeseen, the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private till today, the most brilliant, the most enviable; in short, a thing of which there is but one example in past ages, and that not an exact one either; a thing that we cannot believe in Paris; how then will it gain credit at Lyons? a thing which makes everybody cry, “Lord have mercy upon us!” a thing which causes the greatest joy to Madame de Rohan and Madame d’Haurive; a thing, in fine, which is to happen on Sunday next, when those who are present will doubt the evidence of their senses; a thing which, though it is to be done on Sunday, yet perhaps will not be finished on Monday. I cannot bring myself to tell it you: guess what it is.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“The other day I made a maxim off-hand without once thinking of it; and I liked it so well that I fancied I had taken it out of M. de La Rochefoucauld’s; … Pray where did this come from? have I read it? or did I dream it? or is it my own idea? Nothing can be truer than the thing itself, nor than that I am totally ignorant how I came by it. I found it properly arranged in my brain, and at the end of my tongue.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“Divest yourself of the dislike you have taken to circumstantial details; I have often told you, and you ought yourself to feel the truth of this remark, that they are as dear to us from those we love, as they are tedious and disagreeable from others. If they are displeasing to us, it is only from the indifference we feel for those who write them.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“For my part, I despise trivial occurrences; I am only for those which surprise and astonish.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“You tell me, my dear child, you wish Time would fly more rapidly: alas! You know not what you say. He will obey you but too implicitly; he will overtake you before you are aware, and when you would restrain his impetuous career, it will not be in your power. I was formerly guilty of the same fault, of which I now repent; and, though he has been more lenient with me than he has been with many others, yet I trace his depredating progress in the loss of a thousand little charms, of which he has robbed me.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I make no doubt, the consternation was general; it must be very disagreeable to have so fatal an event break in upon an entertainment that cost fifty thousand crowns.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I prose on with a facility that wearies you to death.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“Never, surely, was anything more easily awakened as my affection for you; a thousand circumstances, a thousand thoughts, a thousand remembrances, occupy my heart; but always in the manner you could wish; my memory presents me with nothing but pleasing images of your amiable qualities; I hope yours does the same.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“He flung out of the room in a violent passion. These over-niceties are troublesome; I have them not for him, but I have them too much for a certain beautiful love who is dearer to me than my life, and whom I embrace with all the affection of my heart.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I am a fool; that is beyond dispute; but you are bound to love my folly.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“We are never satisfied with having done well, and In endeavoring to do better, do much worse.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I am told that a great man, greater by some inches than any other man, had ordered a remarkable costume to be made for him, and after all would not wear it; for he learned by chance that a certain lady, with whose person he was not acquainted, and to whom he never spoke a word in his life, would not be at the assembly.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“I am in despair when I see people happy. This is not a very noble feeling : but how when our friends are unhappy can one support thunderstrokes of bliss in others?”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends

“Nothing is so capable of overturning a good intention as to show distrust of it; to be suspected for an enemy is often sufficient to make a person become one.”
― Marie Rabutin-Chantal De Sevigne, The Letters of Madame De Sevigne to Her Daughter and Friends