Francois de La Rochefoucauld Heart Quotations

The intellect is always fooled by the heart.

The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.

If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.

The heart is forever making the head its fool.

In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.

If we judge love by most of its effects, it resembles rather hatred than affection.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.

If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.

We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive.

All who know their own minds know not their own hearts.

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.

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.

Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which fixes our hearts successively to all the qualities of the person loved--sometimes admiring one and sometimes another above all the rest--so that this constancy roves as far as it can, and is no better than inconstancy, confined within the compass of one person.

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.

A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavors to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.

The mind cannot long play the heart's role.

Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.

In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.

Imagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person's heart.

Imagination does not enable us to invent as many different contradictions as there are by nature in every heart.

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.

The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts.

The mind is always the patsy of the heart.

We cannot possibly imagine the variety of contradictions in every heart.

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.

In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.

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.