La Rochefoucauld Quotes

A fool has not material enough to be good. [Fr., Un sot n'a pas assez d'etoffe pour etre bon.]

Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.

Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes.

Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.

We do not like to praise, and seldom praise anyone without self-interest.

The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.

A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.

In love deceit almost always outstrips distrust.

The moderation of men in the most exalted fortunes is a desire to be thought above those things that have raised them so high.

We are never so ridiculous through what we are as through what we pretend to be.

Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind and from this arises the happiness of the poor

Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.

The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others.

It is as commendable to think well of oneself when alone, as it is ridiculous to speak well of oneself among others.

If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter.

The hunger for applause is the source for all conscious literature and heroism

Most people judge men by their success or their good fortune.

There may be talent without position, but there is no position without some kind of talent.

We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.

One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks.

Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.

Gratitude is a useless word. You will find it in a dictionary but not in life.

Passion often makes a fool of the cleverest man and often makes the most foolish men clever

Love, like fire, cannot subsist without constant impulse; it ceases to live from the moment it ceases to hope or to fear.

Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.

Nothing is more ridiculous in old people that were once good-looking, than to forget that they are not so still.

In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they are in love with love.

It is harder to hide the feelings we have than to feign the ones we do not have.

The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.

Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.

Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come.

To know oneself is not necessarily to improve oneself

We give nothing so freely as advice.

Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity.

There are reproaches which praise, and praises which defame.

It is difficult to like those whom we do not esteem; but it is no less so to like those whom we esteem more than ourselves.

However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another.

History never embraces more than a small part of reality

The smallest fault of women who give themselves up to love is to love.

There are women who never had an intrigue; but there are scarce any who never had but one.

Constancy in love ... is only inconstancy confined to one object.

There are follies as catching as contagious disorders.

Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.

If we never flattered ourselves we should have but scant pleasure.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

What often prevents our abandoning ourselves to a single vice is, our having more than one.

The vivacity that augments with years is not far from folly.

We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.