Penetration has an air of divination; it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind.
Francois de La RochefoucauldThe health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.
Francois de La RochefoucauldThere are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.
Francois de La RochefoucauldMen have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld