Timely and wise fear of danger prevents danger. [ Proverb ]

The severity of the laws prevents the execution of them. [ Montesquieu ]

The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so. [ La Rochefoucauld ]

What prevents us from being natural is the desire to appear so. [ La Rochefoucauld ]

Nothing so much prevents one from being natural as the desire to appear so. [ La Roche ]

There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so. [ Colton ]

Learning the liberal arts and sciences thoroughly, softens men's manners, and prevents their being a pack of brutes. [ Ovid ]

For my part, it is not the mystery of the incarnation which I discover in religion, but the mystery of social order, which associates with heaven that idea of equality which prevents the rich from destroying the poor. [ Napoleon I ]

What with the duties expected of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit or pleasure. It gives one position and prevents one from keeping it up. [ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest ]

Our senses will not admit anything extreme. Too much noise confuses us, too much light dazzles us, too great distance or nearness prevents vision, too great prolixity or brevity weakens an argument, too much pleasure gives pain, too much accordance annoys. [ Pascal ]

Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force. [ Colton ]