François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

True love is like ghosts which everybody talks about and few have seen.
François de La Rochefoucauld
I always say to myself what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.
François de La Rochefoucauld
True eloquence consists of saying all that should be said and that only.
François de La Rochefoucauld
A man who finds no satisfaction in himself seeks for it in vain elsewhere.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others.
François de La Rochefoucauld
It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it is ridiculous to show it to others.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Nothing is so infectious as example.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.
François de La Rochefoucauld
To establish oneself in the world one has to do all one can to appear established.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.
François de La Rochefoucauld
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
François de La Rochefoucauld
In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything let us examine how happy they are who already possess it.
François de La Rochefoucauld
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that are offered.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.
François de La Rochefoucauld
To establish oneself in the world one has to do all one can to appear established.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.
François de La Rochefoucauld
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
François de La Rochefoucauld
In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything let us examine how happy they are who already possess it.
François de La Rochefoucauld
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that are offered.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts even that of disinterestedness.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Happiness is in the taste and not in the things themselves we are happy from possessing what we like not from possessing what others like.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Though men pride themselves on their great actions often they are not the result of any great design but of chance.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Hope is the last thing that dies in man.
François de La Rochefoucauld
A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.
François de La Rochefoucauld
If we have not peace within ourselves it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests.
François de La Rochefoucauld
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
François de La Rochefoucauld
What causes us to like new acquaintances is not so much weariness of our old ones or the pleasure of change as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well and the hope of being admired more by those who do not know so much about us.
François de La Rochefoucauld
It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.
François de La Rochefoucauld
What men call friendship is no more than a partnership a mutual care of interests an exchange of favors - in a word it is a sort of traffic in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.
François de La Rochefoucauld
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
François de La Rochefoucauld
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter.
François de La Rochefoucauld
If we resist our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The passions are the only orators which always persuade.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We often forgive those who bore us but can't forgive those whom we bore.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Extreme boredom provides its own antidote.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.
François de La Rochefoucauld
87.—Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aimé Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."—2 TIM. iii. 13.]
François de La Rochefoucauld
The truest way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.
François de La Rochefoucauld
In jealousy there is more of self-love than love
François de La Rochefoucauld
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.
François de La Rochefoucauld
If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad.
François de La Rochefoucauld