Quotes from Manon Lescaut

“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“It has never been matter of wonder to me that human resolutions are liable to change; one passion gives them birth, another may destroy them.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“May your criminal enjoyments vanish as a shadow! may your ill-gotten wealth leave you without a resource; and may you yourself remain alone and deserted, to learn the vanity of these things, which now divert you from better pursuits!”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“There is nothing more glorious—nothing that does more honour to true virtue, than the confidence with which one approaches a friend of tried integrity.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“The girl arrived; I thought her handsome; and as I doubted not that you would be mortified by my absence, I did most sincerely hope that she would be able to dissipate something of your ennui: for it is the fidelity of the heart alone that I value.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“Some say that Love, at sight of human ties, Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“Love! love!.. thou art never to be reconciled with discretion!”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“De la manière dont nous sommes faits, il est certain que notre félicité consiste dans le plaisir ; je défie qu'on s'en forme une autre idée ; or le cœur n'a pas besoin de se consulter longtemps pour sentir que, de tous les plaisirs, les plus doux sont ceux de l'amour.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“on ne ferait pas une divinité de l'amour, s'il n'opérait souvent des prodiges.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“Pour moi, qui n'ai que de l'amour et de la constance à offrir les femmes méprisent ma misère et font leur jouet de ma simplicité. J'ajoutai”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“Ah ! les expressions ne rendent jamais qu'à demi les sentiments du cœur.”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“I was horror-stricken at the contrast between the serenity of but a few moments ago and the wild stirrings of desire I could already feel within me. l was shuddering as you do when you find yourself alone at night on some desolate moorland, when all familiar bearings are lost and a panic fear comes over you that you can dispel only by calmly studying all the landmarks”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“I swear that you are the idol of my heart, my dear Chevalier, and there is nobody in the world I love as I love you. But don't you see, my poor darling, that loyalty is a silly virtue in the pass we are in? Do you really think we can love each other with nothing to eat? one fine day, Hunger would lead me into some fatal mistake and thinking I was sign for love, I should really be drawing my last breath”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

“The fidelity I expect of you is that of the heart”
― Antoine François Prévost, quote from Manon Lescaut

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Popular quotes

“They were totally alone, those kids, like each had been accidentally sent to earth from a distant planet to live among adult humans and be dependent on them for everything because compared to the adult humans they were extremely fragile creatures and didn't know the language or how anything here worked and hadn't arrived with any money. And because they were like forbidden by the humans to use their old language they'd forgotten it so they couldn't be much company or help to each other either. They couldn't even talk about the old days and so pretty soon they forgot there ever were any old days and all there was now was life on earth with adult humans who called them children and acted toward them like they owned them and like they were objects not living creatures with souls.”
― Russell Banks, quote from Rule of the Bone

“The way we word it, it's as if our backs were turned to the past as we look toward the futre; and that is, in fact, how we actually think of it: the future in front, the past behind. To dynamic personalities, the present is a ship that drives its bow through the rough seas of the future. To ore passive ones, it is rather like a raft drifting along with the tide. THere is, of course, something wrong with both these images, for if time is movement, then it must be moving through another kind of time, and the secondary time through yet another; and thus time is endlessly multiplied. This is the kind of concept that does not please philosophers, but then, inventions of the heart have little to do with those of the intellect.
Besides, whoever keeps the future in front of him and the past at his back is doing something else that is hard to imagine. For the image implies that events somehow already exist in the future, reach the present at a determined moment, and finally come to rest in the past. But nothing exists in the future; it is empty; one might die at any minute. Therefore such a person has his face turned toward the void, whereas it is the past behind him that is visible, stored in the memory.”
― Harry Mulisch, quote from The Assault

“I held my breath—but the pain was worse, jagged edges of glass ripping my heart apart,”
― Melanie Benjamin, quote from Alice I Have Been

“I think about how angry I was that my dad didn't take better care of himself. How he never went to the doctor, let himself become grossly overweight, smoked three packs a day, drank like a fish and never exercised. But then I think about how his colleague mentioned that, days before dying, my dad had said that he had lived a good life and that he was satisfied. I realize that there is a certain value in my father's way of life. He ate, smoked and drank as he pleased, and one day he just suddenly and quickly died. Given some of the other choices I'd witnessed, it turns out that enjoying yourself and then dying quickly is not such a bad way to go.”
― Mark Oliver Everett, quote from Things The Grandchildren Should Know

“The personality of Jesus emerged from the Gospels with astonishing consistency. Whenever they were written, they were written in the shadow of a personality so tremendous that Christians who may never have seen him knew him utterly: that strange mixture of unbearable sternness and heartbreaking tenderness.”
― Sheldon Vanauken, quote from A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.