All authors to their own defects are blind. [ Dryden ]
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend - and every foe. [ Pope ]
We must love our friend with all his defects. [ Italian Proverb ]
This fellow must have a rare understanding;
For nature recompenseth the defects
Of one part with redundance in another;
Blind men have excellent memories, and the tongue
Thus indisposed, there's treasure in the intellect. [ Shirley ]
We please oftener by our defects than by our virtues. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power. [ Goethe ]
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters. [ Swift ]
It is the prerogative of great men only to have great defects. [ Rochefoucauld ]
Absence is a cosmetic that softens or disguises the greatest defects.
A lover has all the virtues and all the defects that a husband has not. [ Balzac ]
Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world. [ Feltham ]
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse as we grow old. [ Rochefoucauld ]
An old coquette has all the defects of a young one, and none of her charms. [ A. Dupuy ]
There are no perfect women in the world; only hypocrites exhibit no defects. [ Ninon de Lenclos ]
Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body, invented to cover the defects of the mind. [ La Roche ]
If we had no defects, we should not take so much pleasure in discovering those of others. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
It is not the defects but the beauties which should form our criterion of judgment in all matters of art. [ Chapin ]
Hypocrites are wicked: they hide their defects with so much care, that their hearts are poisoned by them. [ Marguerite de Valais ]
We must not take the faults of our youth with us into our old age, for old age brings with it its own defects. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
We live with our defects as with the odors we carry about us: we do not perceive them, but they incommode those who approach us. [ Mme. de Lambert ]
There are men who dwell on the defects of their enemies. I always have regard to the merits of mine, and derive profit therefrom. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them, women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellects. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]
We should love our friends as true amateurs love pictures: they keep their eyes perpetually fixed on the fine points, and do not see the defects. [ Mme. Dufresnoy ]
There is among men such intense affectation that they often boast of defects which they have not, more willingly than of qualities which they have. [ George Sand ]
The woman who loves us is only a woman, but the woman we love is a celestial being whose defects disappear under the prism through which we see her. [ E. de Girardin ]
Affectation in any part of our carriage is lighting up a candle to our defects, and never fails to make us be taken notice of either as wanting sense or wanting sincerity. [ Locke ]
Simple nature, however defective, is better than the least objectionable affectation; and, defects for defects, those which are natural are more bearable than affected virtues. [ Saint-Evremond ]
Gravity, with all its pretensions, was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it, viz., a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind. [ Sterne ]
Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which both, by their contrasts, make harmonious their blending; each supplying the defects of the helpmate, and completing, by fusion, one strong human soul. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Glow-worms are the image of women: when they are in the dark, one is struck with their brilliancy; as soon as they appear in the broad light of the world, one sees them in their true colors, with all their defects. [ Mme. Necker ]
I never yet heard man or woman much abused, that I was not inclined to think the better of them; and to transfer any suspicion or dislike to the person who appeared to take delight in pointing out the defects of a fellow-creature. [ Jane Porter ]
A woman who is guided by the head, and not by the heart, is a social pestilence: she has all the defects of the passionate and affectionate woman, with none of her compensations; she is without pity, without love, without virtue, without sex. [ Balzac ]
No one was ever the better for advice: in general, what we called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdom at another's expense; and to receive advice was little better than tamely to afford another the occasion of raising himself a character from our defects. [ Lord Shaftesbury ]
So long as thou art ignorant, be not ashamed to learn : he that is so fondly modest, not to acknowledge his own defects of knowledge, shall in time, be so foully impudent to justify his own ignorance; ignorance is the greatest of all infirmities, and, justified, the chiefest of all follies. [ Quarks ]
Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk; when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects. [ Johnson ]
The very essence of gravity was design, and, consequently, deceit; it was a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth; and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it - a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind. [ Sterne ]