Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.

Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.

That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.

In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful.

The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.

We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind and from this arises the happiness of the poor

The esteem of good men is the reward of our worth, but the reputation of the world in general is the gift of our fate.

The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.

The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.

Interest blinds some people, and enlightens others.

Affected simplicity is a subtle imposture.

To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.

We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.

Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.

If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.

The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.

Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.

The intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception.

Nothing is more ridiculous in old people that were once good-looking, than to forget that they are not so still.

When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like other men.

Propriety is the least of all laws, and the most observed.

Friendship is a traffic wherein self-love always proposes to be the gainer.

We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.

Innocence is lucky if it finds the same protection as guilt

Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.

Clemency, 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.

Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

Our minds are lazier than our bodies.

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

It is easier to fall in love when you are out of it than to get out of it when you are in.

Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.

When a man must force himself to be faithful in his love, this is hardly better than unfaithfulness.

Envy is more incapable of reconciliation than hatred is.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavors to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.

Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.

Idleness 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.

Love, all agreeable as it is, charms more by the fashion in which it displays itself, than by its own true merit.