The reason we do not let our friends see the very bottom of our hearts is not so much distrust of them as distrust of ourselves.
Francois de La RochefoucauldIt is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.
Francois de La RochefoucauldIdleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge; and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.
Francois de La RochefoucauldClemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld