Quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken."

"It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it."

"Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding."

"We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them."

"There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade."

"Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them."

"We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes."

"Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples."

"There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men."

"True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen."

"What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them."

"One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines."

"Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves."

"Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude."

"Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs."

"It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them."

"A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire."

"Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance."

"Leadership is not a title, it is the realization that the truest form of bravery is vulnerability."

"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."

"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."

"It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved."

"It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular."

"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."

"Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice."

"There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices."

"As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing."

"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."

"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires."

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example."

"We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years."

"A visionary sees the unseen and knows the pursuit of truth is a lifelong endeavor."

"To love truly means recognizing that the light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance."

"The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us."

"The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them."

"We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it."

"There is nothing men are so generous of as advice."

"Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty."

"We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions."

"Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them."

"One forgives to the degree that one loves."

"In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us."

"To love truly means recognizing that the river of time shapes the stones of destiny."

"The intellect is always fooled by the heart."

"Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example."

"One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one."

"Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever."

"We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish."

"It is with true love as it is with ghosts everyone talks about it, but few have seen it."

"There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations."

"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not."

"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love."

"In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge."

"The echoes of eternity remind us that every step forward is a victory over stagnation."

"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."

"There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do."

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

"Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like."

"However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention."

"It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever."

"Many men are contemptuous of riches few can give them away."

"To know how to hide one's ability is great skill."

"We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us."

"They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones."

"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."

"Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit."

"The pursuit of excellence requires knowing that the strength of a community lies in its compassion."

"We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others."

"If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength."

"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."

"It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age."

"A visionary sees the unseen and knows gratitude turns what we have into enough."

"In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors."

"Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors."

"A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter."

"Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye."

"On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly."

"Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth."

"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."

"To conquer fear is to realize that the journey is far more important than the destination."

"Only the contemptible fear contempt."

"Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences."

"Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on."

"We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done."

"We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them."

"A life well-lived is a testament that a single moment of clarity can change a lifetime."

"Taste may change, but inclination never."

"Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness."

"The harmony of the universe dictates that the only true currency in life is time well spent."

"A life well-lived is a testament that the river of time shapes the stones of destiny."

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

"Leadership is not a title, it is the realization that character is forged in the fires of discipline."

"Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while."

"Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love."

"What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one."

"Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible."

"We pardon to the extent that we love."

"We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire."

"Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them."

"The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune."

"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."

"When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time."

"It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone."

"A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant."

"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."

"Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed."

"If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources."

"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."

"Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected."

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

"However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship."

"The simplest truths often reveal that every failure is just a stepping stone to greatness."

"Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed."

"He who seeks peace must remember that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it."

"To master the mind is to understand that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it."

"You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one."

"We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own."

"A mindful spirit recognizes that the silence between the notes creates the music."

"Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect."

"Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it."

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

"The art of living is discovering that a single spark of imagination can ignite the world."

"We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do."

"Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route."

"No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so."

"We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones."

"The beauty of the unknown is that every challenge is an invitation to grow stronger."

"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."

"Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency."

"The art of living is discovering that the light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance."