Instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.
Francois de La RochefoucauldFuneral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.
Francois de La RochefoucauldWe would rather see those to whom we do good, than those who do good to us.
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