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| François de La Rochefoucauld, born 1613 died 1680 was a renowned French author |
Quotes by La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.Perfect virtue is to do without witness what we should be capable of doing before the entire world.
When fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well-nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it.
Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others mistake great future advantages for small present interests.
There is at least as much eloquence in the voice, eyes, and air of a speaker as in his choice of words.
There is always this difference that the contempt the noble shows for death is but the love of fame which hides death from his sight.
The restraints we impose on ourselves to refrain from loving are often more cruel than the severity of our beloved.
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration.
The pleasure of love is in loving, and we are made happier by the passion that we experience than by that which we inspire.
Folly pursues us at all periods of our lives. If someone seems wise it is only because his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils, but present evils triumph over it.
Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies, prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life’s ills.
Extreme avarice misapprehends itself almost always; there is no passion which more often misses its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are who already possess it.
Whilst weakness and timidity keep us to our duty, virtue has often all the honor.
Too great an eagerness to discharge an obligation is a species of ingratitude.
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all of the motives which produced them.
Old age is a tyrant who forbids, upon pain of death, all the pleasures of youth.
Sincerity is an opening of the heart; we find it in very few persons; and that which seems ordinarily is only a cunning deceit to attract the confidence of others.
It is difficult to like those whom we do not esteem; but it is no less so to like those whom we esteem more than ourselves.
Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.
Our repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done, as fear of its consequences.
Nobody deserves to be praised for his goodness if he has not the power to be wicked. All other goodness is often only weakness and impotence of the will.
We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise all those who have not a single virtue.
What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.
There are no events so disastrous that adroit men do not draw some advantage from them, nor any so fortunate that the imprudent cannot turn to their own prejudice.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans fires.
All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
Jealousy feeds upon suspicion, and it turns into fury or it ends as soon as we pass from suspicion to certainty.
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
It is not enough to have great qualities; we should also have the management of them.
The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.
Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
