La Rochefoucauld Quotes
People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune.
We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves.
Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.
Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.
Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.
There are few people who are more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure to be so.
We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible.
We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.
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.
We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.
It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.
It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.
The intention of cheating no one lays us open to being cheated ourselves.
We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.
The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.
Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring.
Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know not how to prevent dying.
It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.
It is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.