Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

There are some bad qualities which make great talents.

The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

The sicknesses of the soul have their ups and downs like those of the body; what we take to be a cure is most often merely a respite or change of disease.

History never embraces more than a small part of reality

If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.

Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.

If we did not have pride, we would not complain of it in others.

There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.

We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.

The only good copies are those which make us see the absurdity of bad originals.

In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

What renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of the mind.

Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future.

The duration of our passions is no more dependent on ourselves than the duration of our lives.

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

One man may be more cunning than another, but no one can be more cunning than all the world.

As the great ones of this world are unable to bestow health of body or peace of mind, we always pay too high a price for any good they can do.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness, indeed.

Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.

It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding.

We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.

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.

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.

We frequently do good in order to enable us to do evil later with impunity exemption of punishment.

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.

Women know not the whole of their coquetry.

Whatever discoveries we may have made in the regions of self-love, there still remain many unknown lands.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

Nothing is rarer than real goodness.

In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.

We are lazier in our minds than in our bodies.

Simplicity is a delicate imposition.

The applause we give those who are new to society often proceeds from a secret envying of those already established.

It's easier to know people in general than one person in particular

Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.

All women seem by nature to be coquettes.

To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.

Our good qualities expose us more to hatred and persecution than all the ill we do.

High fortune makes both our virtues and vices stand out as objects that are brought clearly to view by the light.

Sincerity is a certain openness of heart. It is to be found in very few, and what we commonly look upon to be so is only a cunningsort of dissimulation, to insinuate ourselves into the confidence of others.

Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret.