Quotes By Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites.

Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.

The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.

If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.

He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.

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

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.

In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.

Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.

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

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.

We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.

There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

We promise in proportion to our hopes, and we deliver in proportion to our fears.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.

To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so.