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If we judge love by most of its effects, it resembles rather hatred than affection. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Before strongly desiring anything, we should look carefully into the happiness of its present owner. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Truth is the foundation and the reason of the perfection of beauty, for of whatever stature a thing may be, it cannot be beautiful-and perfect, unless it be truly what it should be, and possess truly all that it should have. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Women can more easily conquer their passion than their coquetterie. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is a species of coquetry to make a parade of never practising it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body invented to cover the defects of the mind. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The moderation of men in the most exalted fortunes is a desire to be thought above those things that have raised them so high. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Silence is the safest policy if you are unsure of yourself. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is more difficult for a man to be faithful to his mistress when he is favored than when he is ill treated by her. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Passion often makes a madman of the cleverest man, and renders the greatest fools clever. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The surest proof of being endowed with noble qualities is to be free from envy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Old people are fond of giving good advice; it consoles them for no longer being capable of setting a bad example. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others mistake great future advantages for small present interests. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often are consoled by our want of reason for misfortunes that reason could not have comforted. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sometimes a fool has talent, but never judgment. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge that gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we had no faults, we would not derive so much pleasure from noting those of other people. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Self-love makes our friends appear more or less deserving in proportion to the delight we take in them, and the measures by whichwe judge of their worth depend upon the manner of their conversing with us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We torment ourselves rather to make it appear that we are happy than to become so. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice; a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Lovers, when they are no longer in love, find it very hard to break up. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it; it deprives them of knowledge of remedies which can solace their miseries and can cure their faults. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones; just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Absence abates a moderate passion and intensifies a great one - as the wind blows out a candle but fans fire into flame. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Absense diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, but envy is a timid and shamefaced passion we never dare to acknowledge. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The secret of pleasing in conversation is not to explain too much everything; to say them half and leave a little for divination is a mark of the good opinion we have of others, and nothing flatters their self-love more. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We would rather see those to whom we do good, than those who do good to us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
One may outwit another, but not all the others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sobriety is love of health, or inability to eat much. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The violence done us by others is often less painful than that which we do to ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We always like those who admire us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body; and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Envy is destroyed by true friendship, as coquetry by true love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
86. - Our distrust of another justifies his deceit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love of glory, fear of shame, greed for fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others - all of these are often the causes of the bravery that is spoken so highly of by men. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sincerity is a certain openness of heart. It is to be found in very few, and what we commonly look upon to be so is only a cunningsort of dissimulation, to insinuate ourselves into the confidence of others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We rarely ever perceive others as being sensible, except for those who agree with us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We bear, all of us, the misfortunes of other people with heroic constancy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are no accidents so unlucky but the prudent may draw some advantage from them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love is to the soul of him who loves, what the soul is to the body which it animates. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Madmen and fools see everything through the medium of humor. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit; the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We own up to minor failings, but only so as to convince others that we have no major ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The boldest stroke and best act of friendship is not to disclose our own failings to a friend, but to show him his own. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It's easier to know people in general than one person in particular -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have.
[Fr., On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.] -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
267. - A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The contempt of riches in the philosophers was a concealed desire of revenging on fortune the injustice done to their merit, by despising the good she denied them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Smallness of mind is the cause of stubbornness, and we do not credit readily what is beyond our view. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The only good copies are those which make us see the absurdity of bad originals. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The man who leaves a woman best pleased with herself is the one whom she will soonest wish to see. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are two sorts of constancy in love one arises from continually discovering in the loved person new subjects for love, the other arises from our making a merit of being constant. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The fondness or indifference that the philosophers expressed for life was merely a preference inspired by their self-love, and will no more bear reasoning upon than the relish of the palate or the choice of colors. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we never flattered ourselves we should have but scant pleasure. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Friendship is a traffic wherein self-love always proposes to be the gainer. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing is so catching as example. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The greatest of all gifts is the power to estimate things at their true worth -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
315. - What commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love of fame, fear of disgrace, schemes for advancement, desire to make life comfortable and pleasant, and the urge to humiliate others are often at the root of the valour men hold in such high esteem. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The only security is courage. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The most ingenious men continually pretend to condemn tricking
but this is often done that they may use it more conveniently themselves, when some great occasion or interest offers itself to them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
78. - The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we did not have pride, we would not complain of it in others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is as common for tastes to change as it is uncommon for traits of character. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often brag that we are never bored with ourselves, and are so vain as never to think ourselves bad company. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The old begin to complain of the conduct of the young when they themselves are no longer able to set a bad example. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our own distrust gives a fair pretence for the knavery of other people. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is nothing men are so generous of as advice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We frequently do good in order to enable us to do evil later with impunity exemption of punishment. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person? -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The mind is always the patsy of the heart. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
409. - We should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world only saw the motives which caused them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Fancy sets the value on the gifts of fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind and from this arises the happiness of the poor -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
High fortune makes both our virtues and vices stand out as objects that are brought clearly to view by the light. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are people who, like new songs, are in vogue only for a time. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
No matter how much care we put into hiding our passions under the appearances of devotion and honor, they can always be seen to peer out through these covers. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Were we faultless, we would not derive such satisfaction from remarking the faults of others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The confidence which we have in ourselves give birth to much of that, which we have in others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The sicknesses of the soul have their ups and downs like those of the body; what we take to be a cure is most often merely a respite or change of disease. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The same strength of character which helps a man resist love, helps to make it more violent and lasting too. People of unsettled minds are always driven about with passions, but never absolutely filled with any. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Moderation is a fear of falling into that envy and contempt which those who grow giddy with their good fortune quite justly draw upon themselves. It is a vain boasting of the greatness of our mind. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Esteem never makes ingrates. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is not expedient or wise to examine our friends too closely; few persons are raised in our esteem by a close examination. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Narrow minds think nothing right that is above their own capacity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Few men know all the ill they do. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
463. - There is often more pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies' miseries; it is to show how superior we are to them, that we bestow on them the sign of our compassion. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Taste may change, but inclination never. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura Our envy always outlives the felicity of its object. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A good woman is a hidden treasure; who discovers her will do well not to boast about it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Perseverance is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy; for it seems to be only the enduring of certain inclinations and opinions which men neither give themselves nor take away from themselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over philosophy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Passion often makes a fool of the cleverest man and often makes the most foolish men clever -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Gallantry of mind consists in saying flattering things in an agreeable manner. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are good marriages, but there are no delightful ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The fame of great men ought to be judged always by their big, fancy names. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Organize one's values in the order of their worth -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing ought in reason to mortify our self-satisfaction more that the considering that we condemn at one time what we highly approve and commend at another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Second-rate minds usually condemn everything beyond their grasp. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
How comes it that our memories are good enough to retain even the minutest details of what has befallen us, but not to recollect how many times we have recounted to the same person? -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
324. - There is more self-love than love in jealousy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When we seek reconciliation with our enemies, it is commonly out of a desire to better our own condition, a being harassed and tired out with a state of war, and a fear of some ill accident which we are willing to prevent. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Old fools are greater fools than young ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man does not please long when he has only species of wit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Intrepidity is an extraordinary strength of soul, which raises it above the troubles, disorders and emotions which the sight of great perils can arouse in it; by this strength heroes maintain a calm aspect and preserve their reason and liberty in the most surprising and terrible accidents. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love-Plus many mysteries. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When the soul is ruffled by the remains of one passion, it is more disposed to entertain a new one than when it is entirely curedand at rest from all. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
158. - Flattery is base coin to which only our vanity gives currency. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Happy people rarely correct their faults; they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
357. - Little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds see all and are not even hurt. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The desire to be pitied or to be admired often forms the greater part of our confidence. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Hypocrisy is an homage that vice renders to virtue. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are heroes in evil as well as in good. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The passions often engender their contraries. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
469. - We never desire earnestly what we desire in reason. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is merit without rank, but there is no rank without some merit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Folly pursues us at all periods of our lives. If someone seems wise it is only because his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
True friendship destroys envy, and true love destroys coquetterie. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love is one and the same in the original; but there are a thousand different copies of it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
No one thinks fortune so blind as those she has been least kind to. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now? -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often boast that we are never bored; but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The only thing that should astonish us is that anything can yet astonish us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies; and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The truest way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
To know oneself is not necessarily to improve oneself -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
To boast that one never flirts is actually a kind of flirtation. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Moderation cannot have the credit of combatiug and subduing ambition, they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and indolence of the soul, as ambition is its activity and ardor. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The good or the bad fortune of men depends not less upon their own dispositions than upon fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought; in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What we cut off from our other faults is very often but so much added to our pride. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The reason why most women have so little sense of friendship is that this is but a cold and flat passion to those that have felt that of love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is not love, but self-love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is a great act of cleverness to conceal one's being clever. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A wise man should order his interests, and set them all in their proper places. This order is often troubled by greed, which putsus upon pursuing so many things at once that, in eagerness for matters of less consideration, we grasp at trifles, and let go things of greater value. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Good taste comes more from the judgment than from the mind. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Though most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of friendships; yet a man may make use of them on occasion, as of a traffic whose returns are uncertain, and in which 'tis usual to be cheated. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Often we are firm from weakness, and audacious from timidity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
One should treat one's fate as one does one's health; enjoy it when it is good, be patient with it when it is poor, and never attempt any drastic cure save as an ultimate resort. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Time's chariot-wheels make their carriage-road in the fairest face. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
However we may conceal our passions under the veil ... there is always some place where they peep out. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Tastes in young people are changed by natural impetuosity, and in the aged are preserved by habit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The reason we do not let our friends see the very bottom of our hearts is not so much distrust of them as distrust of ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The reason why lovers and their mistresses never tire of being together is that they are always talking of themselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is no accident so unfortunate but wise men will make some advantage of it, nor any so entirely fortunate but fools may turn it to their own prejudice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is with sincere affection or friendship as with ghosts and apparitions,
a thing that everybody talks of, and scarce any hath seen. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Truth has scarce done so much good in the world as the false appearances of it have done hurt. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is great skill in knowing how to conceal one's skill. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Self-love is the love of a man's own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should manage our fortune as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are no circumstances, however unfortunate, that clever people do not extract some advantage from. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be
and thus the world is merely composed of actors. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Indolence, languid as it is, often masters both passions and virtues. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Women do not know all their powers of flirtation. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Small minds are much distressed by little things. Great minds see them all but are not upset by them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We have few faults which are not far more excusable than the means we adopt to hide them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We judge so superficially of things, that common words and actions spoke and done in an agreeable manner, with some knowledge of what passes in the world, often succeed beyond the greatest ability. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When the heart is still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take up a new one than when wholly cured. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune; it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things; it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Almost everyone takes pleasure in repaying trifling obligations, very many feel gratitude for those that are moderate; but there is scarcely anyone who is not ungrateful for those that are weighty. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love, like fire, cannot subsist without constant impulse; it ceases to live from the moment it ceases to hope or to fear. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We forget our faults easily when they are known to ourselves alone. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A woman is faithful to her first lover for a long time - unless she happens to take a second. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man convinced of his own merit will accept misfortune as an honor, for thus can he persuade others, as well as himself, that he is a worthy target for the arrows of fate. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are almost always wearied in the company of persons with whom we are not permitted to be weary. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally tobe nothing else but the production and the setting up of another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The grace of novelty and the length of habit, though so very opposite to one another, yet agree in this, that they both alike keepus from discovering the faults of our friends. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Women know not the whole of their coquetry. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It requires greater virtues to support good fortune than bad. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is with certain good qualities as with the senses; those who have them not can neither appreciate nor comprehend them in others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Moderation resembles temperance. We are not so unwilling to eat more, as afraid of doing ourselves harm by it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The gallantry of the mind consists in agreeable flattery. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love is the smallest part of gallantry. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
That man, we may be sure, is a person of true worth, whom those who envy him most are yet forced to praise. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Were we perfectly acquainted with the object, we should never passionately desire it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Moderation in people who are contented comes from that calm that good fortune lends to their spirit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Civility is a desire to receive civilities, and to be accounted well-bred. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Gratitude is like credit; it is the backbone of our relations; frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We give nothing so freely as advice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Fortune and humor govern the world. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are never so generous as when giving advice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Silence is the best security to the man who distrusts himself. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are some people upon whom their very faults and failings sit gracefully; and there are others whose very excellencies and accomplishments do not become them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Constancy in love is of two sorts: One is the effect of new excellencies that are always presenting themselves afresh, and attractour affections continually; the other is only from a point of honor, and a taking of pride not to change. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is scarcely any man sufficiently clever to appreciate all the evil he does. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Great men should not have great faults. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
None but the contemptible are apprehensive of contempt. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In the presence of some people we inevitably depart From ourselves: we are inaccurate, we say things we do not feel, And talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we Have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Hatred is stronger than friendship. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done.
[Fr., On croit quelquefoir hair la flatterie; maid on ne hait que a maniere de flatter.] -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some follies are caught, like contagious diseases. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver's pride and the receiver's cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those great and glorious actions that dazzle our eyes with their luster are represented by statesmen as the result of great wisdomand excellent design; whereas, in truth, they are commonly the effects of the humors and passions. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Beautiful coquettes are quacks of love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We always get bored with those whom we bore. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
People always complain about their memories, never about their minds. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is easier to rule others than to keep from being ruled oneself. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Even women are perfect at the outset. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him; and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love's greatest miracle is the curing of coquetry. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sobriety is concern for one's health - or limited capacity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Moral severity in women is only a dress or paint which they use to set off their beauty. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we took as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to deceive others by disguising what we are; we might appear as we are, without being at the trouble of any disguise. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Affected simplicity is a subtle imposture. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We promise in proportion to our hopes, and we deliver in proportion to our fears. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The vivacity that augments with years is not far from folly. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated; and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The desire of talking of ourselves, and showing those faults we do not mind having seen, makes up a good part of our sincerity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Imagination does not enable us to invent as many different contradictions as there are by nature in every heart. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
All who know their own minds know not their own hearts. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Interest blinds some people, and enlightens others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Weak people cannot be sincere. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Tricks and treachery are merely proofs of lack of skill. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The temperament that produces a talent for little things is the opposite of that required for great ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Eloquence resides as much in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the expression of the face, as in the choice of words. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We say little, when vanity does not make us speak. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
He is safe who admits no one to his confidence. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The tranquility or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the big things which happen to us in life, as on the pleasant or unpleasant arrangements of the little things which happen daily. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Weakness is more opposed to virtue than is vice. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Imagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person's heart. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks.
[Fr., Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.] -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood; age retains its tastes by habit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It takes more strength of character to withstand good fortune than bad. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing is so capable of diminishing self-love as the observation that we disapprove at one time what we approve at another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Prudence and love are inconsistent; in proportion as the last increases, the other decreases. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Everyone takes pleasure in returning small obligations, many people acknowledge moderate ones; but there are only a scarce few who do not pay great ones with ingratitude. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In infants, levity is a prettiness; in men a shameful defect; but in old age, a monstrous folly. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some beautiful things are more dazzling when they are still imperfect than when they have been too perfectly crafted. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Preserving the serious health condition is usually painful. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We should desire very few things passionately if we did but perfectly know the nature of the things we desire. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Female gossips are generally actuated by active ignorance. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Idleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge; and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The only thing constant in life is change. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Affected simplicity is an elegant imposture. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The older a fool is, the worse he is. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are heroes of wickedness, as there are of goodness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The ambitious deceive themselves in proposing an end to their ambition; that end, when attained, becomes a means. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acpuire it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is safer to do most men harm than to do them too much good. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Unfaithfulness ought to extinguish love, and we should not be jealous when there is reason to be. Only those who give no grounds for jealousy are worthy of it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If it were not for poetry, few men would ever fall in love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true delicacy is solid refinement. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Though confidence is very fine, and makes the future sunny; I want no confidence for mine, I'd rather have the money -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
350. - Why we hate with so much bitterness those who deceive us is because they think themselves more clever than we are. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Idleness is more an infirmity of the mind than of the body. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are few people who would not be ashamed of being loved when they love no longer. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often in our misfortunes take that for constancy and patience which is only dejection of mind; we suffer without daring to holdup our heads, just as cowards let themselves be knocked on the head because they have not courage to strike back. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If a man doesn't find ease in himself, 'tis in vain to seek it elsewhere. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
19. - We have all sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Few people know how to be old. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There is many a virtuous woman weary of her trade. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The moderation of fortunate people comes from the calm which good fortune gives to their tempers. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labor. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Sometimes, occasions occur in life which demand you to be a little foolish in order to skillfully extricate yourself. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Hope and fear are inseparable. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We cannot possibly imagine the variety of contradictions in every heart. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It often happens that things come into the mind in a more finished form than could have been achieved after much study. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
433. - The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy. ["Nemo alienae virtuti invidet qui satis confidet suae." - Cicero In Marc Ant.] -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are never so easily deceived as when we imagine we are deceiving others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are women who never had an intrigue; but there are scarce any who never had but one. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
When a man is in love, he doubts, very often, what he most firmly believes. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We pardon as long as we love. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It requires no small degree of ability to know when to conceal one's ability. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Generosity is the vanity of giving. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A man often thinks he rules himself, when all the while he is ruled and managed; and while his understanding directs one design, his affections imperceptibly draw him into another. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Love, all agreeable as it is, charms more by the fashion in which it displays itself, than by its own true merit. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nothing prevents us being natural so much as the desire to appear so. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all of those that follow it. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It is the prerogative of great men only to have great defects. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are very far from always knowing our own wishes. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Simplicity is a delicate imposition. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
There are several remedies which will cure love, but there are no infallible ones. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
However we distrust the sincerity of those whom we talk with, we always believe them more sincere with us than with others. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In love deceit almost always outstrips distrust. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In love deceit nearly always goes further than mistrust. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
In love the deceit generally outstrips the distrust. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
The more we love, the nearer we are to hate. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers. -- Francois De La Rochefoucauld