Pierre Marc Gaston de Lévis, Duke of Lévis
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Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis (7 March 1764, Paris – 15 February 1830), second duke of Lévis, peer of France, was a French politician, aphorist and député to the National Constituent Assembly. His father was the first duke of Lévis, marshal Francis de Gaston. In 1816 he was elected to seat 6 of the Académie française. During the French Revolution, he escaped to England. Two of his three sisters and his mother were sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution.
He is credited with the quotation "Boredom is an illness for which work is the remedy". The quotation often attributed to Voltaire, "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers" is a version of one maxim by Lévis: "Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses." (It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers) from Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets de morale et de politique (Paris, 1808): Maxim xviii.[1] His 1808 book is also the source of the expression "noblesse oblige" (nobility obliges; privilege entails responsibility).[2][3][4]
Works
- 1808 : Voyage de Kang-Hi, ou nouvelles lettres chinoises, 2 vol.
- 1808 : Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets
- 1812 : Suite des quatre Fiercadins
- 1814 : L'Angleterre au commencement du XIXe siècle
- 1813 : Souvenirs et portraits 1780-1789[5]
- 1816 : Considérations morales sur les finances
- 1818 : Des emprunts
- 1819 : De l'autorité des chambres sur leurs membres
- 1824 : Considérations sur la situation financière de la France
- 1828 : La conspiration de 1821 ou les jumeaux de Chevreuse, 2 vol.
- 1829 : Lettre sur la méthode Jacotot
References
- ^ "Voltaire – Wikiquote".
- ^ Shapiro, Fred R. (ed.). The New Yale Book of Quotations. Yale University Press. p. 486.
- ^ Bartlett, John. Familiar Quotations. Little, Brown. p. 501.
- ^ Lévis, M. Gaston de. Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets de morale et de politique. P. Didot. p. 24.
- ^ Harvard catalog record
