Quotes By Francois De La Rochefoucauld
Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated; and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune; it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things; it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld