Quotes by Moralists - Page 2

The nearer we come to great men the more clearly we see that they are only men. They rarely seem great to their valets.
Jean de La Bruyère
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
Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
Jean de La Bruyère
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
A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.
Jean de La Bruyère
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
The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
Jean de La Bruyère
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
Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually merely inertia or lack of will-power
François de La Rochefoucauld
In love we often doubt what we most believe.
François de La Rochefoucauld
It is with true love as with ghosts. Every one talks of it but few have seen it.
François de La Rochefoucauld
The unnamed should not be mistaken for the nonexistent.
Jean de La Bruyère
The very essence of politeness is to take care that by our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with themselves.
Jean de La Bruyère
To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.
François de La Rochefoucauld
He who lives without folly is not as wise as he may think.
François de La Rochefoucauld
To achieve great things, we must live as though we were never going to die.
Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues
If poverty is the mother of all crimes, lack of intelligence is their father.
Jean de La Bruyère
It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all of those that follow it.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There are few things we should keenly desire if we really knew what we wanted.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We forgive so long as we love.
François de La Rochefoucauld
True love is like ghosts which many believe in, but few have seen.
François de La Rochefoucauld
It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.
François de La Rochefoucauld
A weakling is incapable of sincerity.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Almost always we are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Nothing but courage can guide life.
Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues
One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.
François de La Rochefoucauld
In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Passion often makes a madman of the cleverest man, and renders the greatest fools clever.
François de La Rochefoucauld
How rare true love maybe, it is less so than true friendship.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
Jean de La Bruyère
Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
Jean de La Bruyère
If some persons died and others did not die death would indeed be a terrible affliction.
Jean de La Bruyère
We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand different versions.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.
François de La Rochefoucauld