Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Francois de La RochefoucauldWhatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others.
Francois de La RochefoucauldWe do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.
Francois de La RochefoucauldImagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person's heart.
Francois de La RochefoucauldThere is a form of eminence which does not depend on fate; it is an air which sets us apart and seems to prtend great things; it is the value which we unconsciously attach to ourselves; it is the quality which wins us deference of others; more than birth, position, or ability, it gives us ascendance.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld