Francois De La Rochefoucauld Quotes
There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us.
It is worth nothing to be young without being beautiful, nor to be beautiful without being young.
Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.
Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood; age retains its tastes by habit.
Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body invented to cover the defects of the mind.
He is a truly virtuous man who wishes always to be open to the observation of honest men.
Sometimes there is equal or more ability in knowing how to use good advice than there is in giving it.
It is more difficult for a man to be faithful to his mistress when he is favored than when he is ill treated by her.
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 often are consoled by our want of reason for misfortunes that reason could not have comforted.
Women find it far more difficult to overcome their inclination to coquetry than to overcome their love.
It is easier for a man to be thought fit for an employment that he has not, than for one he stands already possessed of, and is exercising.
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.
That conduct often seems ridiculous the secret reasons of which are wise and solid.
Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.
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.
The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.
The sicknesses of the soul have their ups and downs like those of the body; what we take to be a cure is most often merely a respite or change of disease.
Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.
As the great ones of this world are unable to bestow health of body or peace of mind, we always pay too high a price for any good they can do.
We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.
Women in love sooner forgive great indiscretions than small infidelities.
The only thing that should astonish us is that anything can yet astonish us.
Were we faultless, we would not derive such satisfaction from remarking the faults of others.
The reason why most women have so little sense of friendship is that this is but a cold and flat passion to those that have felt that of love.
Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.
Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.
It is with sincere affection or friendship as with ghosts and apparitions,--a thing that everybody talks of, and scarce any hath seen.
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.