Francois De La Rochefoucauld Quotes

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

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

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

Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on.

A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

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

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

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

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

The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest.

Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts even that of disinterestedness.

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

The intellect is always fooled by the heart.

The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.

Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests.

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

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

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.

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

It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it is ridiculous to show it to others.

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

Taste may change, but inclination never.

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

To establish oneself in the world one has to do all one can to appear established.

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

We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.

There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.

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

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

There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.

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

He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.

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.

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

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

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

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

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 great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A man who finds no satisfaction in himself seeks for it in vain elsewhere.