François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
272 Sourced Quotes
What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Some people's faults are becoming to them; others are disgraced by their own good traits.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
François de La Rochefoucauld
There is no disguise which can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Those who apply themselves too much to little things often become incapable of great ones.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Luck must be dealt with like health: enjoy it when it is good, be patient when it is bad.
François de La Rochefoucauld
True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves that we have no great ones.
François de La Rochefoucauld
No one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.
François de La Rochefoucauld
We should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world only saw the motives which caused them.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy feeds upon suspicion, and it turns into fury or it ends as soon as we pass from suspicion to certainty.
François de La Rochefoucauld