Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotations | Page 3

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.

We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.

We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.

We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites.

There is many a virtuous woman weary of her trade.

I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I would be without it.

We promise in proportion to our hopes, and we deliver in proportion to our fears.

The dullness of certain people is sometimes a sufficient security against the attack of an artful man.

The heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age.

Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.

Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.

Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know not how to prevent dying.

Nothing is so catching as example.

We are deceived if we think that mind and judgment are two different matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind. This light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment.

Madmen and fools see everything through the medium of humor.

Sometimes we meet a fool with wit, never one with discretion.

Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.

Love is the smallest part of gallantry.

A man is perhaps ungrateful, but often less chargeable with ingratitude than his benefactor is.

Not to love is in love an infallible means of being loved.

Few men know all the ill they do.

Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.

The rust of business is sometimes polished off in a camp; but never in a court.

Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity.

A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind.

Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.

To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

That conduct often seems ridiculous the secret reasons of which are wise and solid.

The clemency of Princes is often but policy to win the affections of the people.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.

The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.

Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.

Of all the violent passions, the one that becomes a woman best is love.

A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man.

Pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away vanity.

The moderation of fortunate people comes from the calm which good fortune gives to their tempers.

Passion very often makes the wisest men fools, and very often too inspires the greatest fools with wit.

There is a form of eminence which does not depend on fate; it is an air which sets us apart and seems to prtend great things; it is the value which we unconsciously attach to ourselves; it is the quality which wins us deference of others; more than birth, position, or ability, it gives us ascendance.

Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.

Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.

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.

We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.

There is a kind of love, the excess of which forbids jealousy.

As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.

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.

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.

Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.

It is as common for tastes to change as it is uncommon for traits of character.

The passions often engender their contraries.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

A man of understanding finds less difficulty in submitting to a wrong-headed fellow, than in attempting to set him right.

Nothing is rarer than true good nature; they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak.

Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.

Whatever ignominy or disgrace we have incurred, it is almost always in our power to reestablish our reputation.

Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.

Sometimes a fool has talent, but never judgment.

Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles.

Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.

High fortune makes both our virtues and vices stand out as objects that are brought clearly to view by the light.

To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.

The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.

Narrow minds think nothing right that is above their own capacity.

The trust that we put in ourselves makes us feel trust in others.

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.

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.

Instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.

Before strongly desiring anything, we should look carefully into the happiness of its present owner.

Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly.

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.

Time's chariot-wheels make their carriage-road in the fairest face.

The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.

Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood; age retains its tastes by habit.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, as also to the air and complexion of the person.

The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.

To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.

It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.

Avarice is more opposite to economy than liberality.

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.

Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

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.

We are almost always wearied in the company of persons with whom we are not permitted to be weary.

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.

The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.

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.

We can be more clever than one, but not more clever than all.

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.

Confidence in conversation has a greater share than wit.

He is safe who admits no one to his confidence.

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.

The constancy of the wise is only the art of keeping disquietude to one's self.

None but the contemptible are apprehensive of contempt.