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It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.


Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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Hope and fear are inseparable. -La Rochefoucauld.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD En la adversidad de nuestros mejores amigos siempre encontramos algo que no nos desagrada
FRANçOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD En la amistad como en el amor se es más feliz por las cosas que se ignoran que por las que se saben...
FRANçOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD If we had to seek virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is with...
PHILOKALIA If we had to seek virtue outside of ourselves, that would assuredly be difficult; but as it is withi...
PHILOKALIA Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning a...
MADAME DE STAEL Reading is a free practice. I think the readers are free to begin by the books where they want to. T...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO The novelist, he's not a philosopher, not a technician of spoken language. He's someone who ...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO A writer is not a prophet, is not a philosopher; he's just someone who is witness to what is aro...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I can understand better than most the contradiction between the idealistic civilisation and religiou...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I'm used to shifting languages because my father used to speak to us, to my brother and I, he us...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I have the feeling of being a very small item on this planet, and literature enables me to express t...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO The writer, the poet, the novelist, are all creators. This does not mean that they invent language; ...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO When I was a child, I grew up speaking French, I mean, in a French public school. So my first contac...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO My English is closer to the literary English, and I'm not very familiar with jokes in English or...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I grew up in a Mauritian bubble in France... I had the feeling of not belonging, but still living wi...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I've always felt very much from a mixed culture - mainly English and French, but also Nigerian, ...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I don't have any office; I can write everywhere. So, I put a piece of paper on the table, and th...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO To understand the hidden secret of the modern industrial world in which I find myself, I have to ret...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO If I examine the circumstances which inspired me to write - and this is not mere self-indulgence, bu...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO Language is the most extraordinary invention in the history of humanity, the one which came before e...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO To act: that is what the writer would like to be able to do, above all. To act, rather than to bear ...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO I enjoy very much being in a foreign country, in a new country, new place. And I enjoy also beginnin...
J. M. G. LE CLEZIO And all around is the desert; a corner of the mournful kingdom of sand.
PIERRE LOTI Emotions have taught mankind to reason.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Wicked people are always surprised to find ability in those that are good.
LUC DE CLAPIERS To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.
LUC DE CLAPIERS When a thought is too weak to be expressed simply, it should be rejected.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The maxims of men reveal their characters.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Obscurity is the realm of error.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of pleasures.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great amb...
LUC DE CLAPIERS Those who can bear all can dare all.
LUC DE CLAPIERS We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather.
LUC DE CLAPIERS One can not be just if one is not humane.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Clearness ornaments profound thoughts.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Patience is the art of hoping.
LUC DE CLAPIERS All grand thoughts come from the heart.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Indolence is the sleep of the mind.
LUC DE CLAPIERS One promises much, to avoid giving little.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
LUC DE CLAPIERS Great thoughts come from the heart.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
LUC DE CLAPIERS The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the m...
LUC DE CLAPIERS One is not born a woman, but becomes one.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain it...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Art is an attempt to integrate evil.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their ...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of lov...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, ...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiorit...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be ta...
GEORGES BATAILLE The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.
MADAME DE STAEL Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
MADAME DE STAEL That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself foun...
MADAME DE STAEL Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.
MADAME DE STAEL Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are...
MADAME DE STAEL A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.
MADAME DE STAEL Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation, the source of strength is one's self. When one pr...
MADAME DE STAEL To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent.
MADAME DE STAEL Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things ...
MADAME DE STAEL Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.
MADAME DE STAEL Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
MADAME DE STAEL Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.
MADAME DE STAEL The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it...
MADAME DE STAEL Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the check...
MADAME DE STAEL We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.
MADAME DE STAEL One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.
MADAME DE STAEL Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.
MADAME DE STAEL In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.
MADAME DE STAEL When a noble life has prepared for old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of...
MADAME DE STAEL A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
MADAME DE STAEL Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.
MADAME DE STAEL The more I see of men the more I like dogs.
MADAME DE STAEL The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.
MADAME DE STAEL The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.
MADAME DE STAEL When one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people's souls give off such a pungent smell...
OCTAVE MIRBEAU The greatest danger of bombs is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU Women make us poets, children make us philosophers.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL The family is a court of justice which never shuts down for night or day.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL We always keep God waiting while we admit more importunate suitors.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL Our expression and our words never coincide, which is why the animals don't understand us.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL Women eat while they are talking; men talk while they are eating.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL Animals awaken, first facially, then bodily. Men's bodies wake before their faces do. The animal...
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL The mind gets distracted in all sorts of ways. The heart is its own exclusive concern and diversion.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL The beautiful remains so in ugly surroundings.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than the man who forces them to t...
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL The flower is a jumble of thighs, the sun's harem - the most oriental thing imaginable.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL Art is nature speeded up and God slowed down.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL Laughter is regional: a smile extends over the whole face.
MALCOLM DE CHAZAL The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, w...
EDMOND DE GONCOURT Genius is the talent of a person who is dead.
EDMOND DE GONCOURT

More Francois de La Rochefoucauld

One forgives to the degree that one loves.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad example...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We love those who admire us, but not those whom we admire.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD What makes lovers never tire of one another is that they talk always about themselves.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
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 There are few people who are not ashamed of their love affairs when the infatuation is over.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been t...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD If I advance, follow me! If I retreat, kill me! If I die, avenge me!
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We forget our faults easily when they are known to ourselves alone.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Only the great can afford to have great defects.
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 All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is more easy to be wise for others than for ourselves.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the g...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care to acquire.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The common foible of women who have been handsome is to forget that they are no longer so.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Few people know how to be old.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Old people love to give good advice to console themselves for no longer being able to set a bad exam...
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 Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There is such a thing as a general revolution which changes the taste of men as it changes the fortu...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all th...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Usually we praise only to be praised.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Why is our memory good enough to recall to the last detail things that have happened to us, yet not ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The mind is always the patsy of the heart.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat and cold of the blood.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD If we resist our passions, it is more through their weakness than from our strength.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The passions are the only orators which always persuade.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We think very few people sensible, except those who are of our opinion.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We credit scarcely any persons with good sense except those who are of our opinion.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we shou...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means,...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD A person well satisfied with themselves is seldom satisfied with others, and others, rarely are with...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us, and others who please us in spite of their ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is great cleverness to know how to conceal our cleverness.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The happiness or unhappiness of men depends as much on their humors as on fortune.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Fortune and humor govern the world.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a grea...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in convers...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD To establish yourself in the world a person must do all they can to appear already established.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We may give advice, but not the sense to use it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the geniu...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Some beautiful things are more impressive when left imperfect than when too highly finished.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Quarrels would not last so long if the fault lay only on one side.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure, which is useful, to praise which deceives them...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in genera...
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 ha...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There are ways which lead to everything, and if we have sufficient will we should always have suffic...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The fame of great men ought to be judged always by the means they used to acquire it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is for want of application, rather than of means that people fail,
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There are heroes in evil as well as in good.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The height of cleverness is being able to conceal it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Hope and fear are inseparable.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this g...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Nothing is so contagious as an example. We never do great good or evil without bringing about more o...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either cease...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD It is not enough to succeed, others must fail.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Live on doubts; it becomes madness or stops entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourse...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Our enemies approach nearer to truth in their judgments of us than we do ourselves.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We would rather speak badly of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Too great a hurry to discharge an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope for greater favours.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There are few good women who do not tire of their role.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who h...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already posses...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small intere...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the th...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune; it is a certain air which distinguish...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We pardon to the extent that we love.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Civility is but a desire to receive civility, and to be esteemed polite.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Everyone complains of the badness of his memory, but nobody of his judgment.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Lovers never get tired of each other because they are forever talking about themselves.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Men are more satirical from vanity than from malice.
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 We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that th...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are more often treacherous, through weakness than through calculation.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The only good imitations are those that poke fun at bad originals.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.
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 Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There are few people who are more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure to be so.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are never so ridiculous by the qualities we have, as by those we affect to have.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD How can we expect somebody else to keep our secret if we cannot keep it ourselves?
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 Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, ye...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Honest people will respect us for our merit: the public, for our luck.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives behind them...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Weak people cannot be sincere.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwi...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are more often treacherous, through weakness than through calculation.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are so accustomed to wearing a disguise before others that eventually we are unable to recogni...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
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 Passions are the only orators to always convinces us.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conve...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We should manage our fortunes as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, a...
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 Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount ...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acqu...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselve...
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