François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

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Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans fire.

François de La Rochefoucauld
It is a great folly to wish to be wise alone.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The veracity which increases with old age is not far from folly.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Sometimes it is pleasant for a husband to have a jealous wife: he always hears what he loves being talked about.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We may give advice, but we do not inspire conduct.

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

François de La Rochefoucauld
The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Youth is a perpetual intoxication; it is a fever of the mind

François de La Rochefoucauld
Virtue would not go nearly so far if vanity did not keep her company.

François de La Rochefoucauld