La Rochefoucauld Quotes

There are some good marriages, but practically no delightful ones.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

More men are guilty of treason through weakness than any studied design to betray.

He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks. [Fr., Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.]

There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy.

There are good marriages, but there are no delightful ones.

The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.

Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.

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

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.

It is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do.

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.

Idleness is more an infirmity of the mind than of the body.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.

Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.

We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.

Female gossips are generally actuated by active ignorance.

Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.

Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.

The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.

There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.

Nothing is rarer than real goodness.

Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of.

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

It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.

As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.

We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.

Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.

We easily forget crimes that are known to none but ourselves.

The common foible of women who have been handsome is to forget that they are no longer so.

The tranquility or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the big things which happen to us in life, as on the pleasant or unpleasant arrangements of the little things which happen daily.

When love becomes labored we welcome an act of infidelity towards ourselves to free us from fidelity.

We may give advice, but not the sense to use it.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things.

Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.

If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent.

It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen.

A man convinced of his own merit will accept misfortune as an honor, for thus can he persuade others, as well as himself, that he is a worthy target for the arrows of fate.

Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.

Though confidence is very fine, and makes the future sunny; I want no confidence for mine, I'd rather have the money

What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.

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

All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.

Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.

Our own distrust gives a fair pretence for the knavery of other people.