François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

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It is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our friends.

François de La Rochefoucauld
What grace is to the body, good sense is to the mind.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.

François de La Rochefoucauld
It is difficult to define love. In the soul it is a passion to rule; in the mind it is sympathy; and in the body it is only a hidden and tactful desire to possess what we love after many mysteries.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We pardon to the extent that we love.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The accent of one's birthplace lingers in the mind and in the heart as it does in one's speech.

François de La Rochefoucauld
In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions, such that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There is merit without attainment, but no attainment without some merit.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There is an air which belongs to the figure and talents of each individual; we always lose it when we abandon it to assume another. We should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as perfect as we can. This is the reason that the majority of children please. It is because they are wrapt up in the air and manner nature has given them, and are ignorant of any other. They are changed and corrupted when they quit infancy, they think they should imitate what they see, and they are not altogether able to imitate it. In this imitation there is always something of falsity and uncertainty. They have nothing settled in their manner and opinions. Instead of being in reality what they want to appear, they seek to appear what they are not.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire to receive even greater benefits.

François de La Rochefoucauld
One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Hope and fear go arm in arm: there is no fear without hope, no hope without fear.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Some women are so just and discerning that they never see an opportunity to be generous.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Only firm people can be truly soft.

François de La Rochefoucauld
As we age, we become more foolish and wiser.

François de La Rochefoucauld
All men want to be different, and to be greater than they are; they seek for an air other than their own, and a mind different from what they possess; they take their style and manner at chance. They make experiments upon themselves without considering that what suits one person will not suit everyone, that there is no universal rule for taste or manners, and that there are no good copies.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There is but one kind of love, but there are a thousand different copies of it.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Silence is the surest resolve for him who distrusts himself.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The defects and faults in 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.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There is scarcely a single man sufficiently aware to know all the evil he does.

François de La Rochefoucauld
It is less dangerous to treat most men badly than to treat them too well.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Few women's merit lasts as long as their beauty.

François de La Rochefoucauld
However rare true love may be, true friendship is rarer.
Variant: Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer

François de La Rochefoucauld
Thousands of people with good qualities are displeasing; thousands pleasing with far less abilities, and why? Because the first wish to appear to be what they are not, the second are what they appear. Some of the advantages or disadvantages that we have received from nature please in proportion as we know the air, the style, the manner, the sentiments that coincide with our condition and our appearance, and displease in the proportion they are removed from that point.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Folly pursues us throughout our lives, and the man whom we call wise is he whose follies are proportionate to his age and to his fortune.

François de La Rochefoucauld
In their first passion, women love their lovers; in all the others, they love love.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Hardly any man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.

François de La Rochefoucauld