François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

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One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.

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

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
There is merit without attainment, but no attainment without some merit.

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
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
We pardon to the extent that we love.

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
Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.

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

François de La Rochefoucauld
It is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our friends.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We are often more treacherous through weakness than through calculation.

François de La Rochefoucauld
To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.

François de La Rochefoucauld
What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.

François de La Rochefoucauld
A woman often thinks she regrets the lover, when she only regrets the love.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Preserving your health by too strict a diet is a tedious illness.

François de La Rochefoucauld
None deserve the name of good who have not spirit enough to be bad. Goodness, for the most part, is but indolence, or impotence.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The extreme pleasure we take in talking about ourselves should make us afraid that we may scarcely be giving any to our listeners.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We should not speak of all subjects in one tone and in the same manner. We do not march at the head of a regiment as we walk on a promenade; and we should use the same style in which we should naturally speak of different things in the same way, with the same difference as we should walk, but always naturally, and as is suitable, either at the head of a regiment or on a promenade.

François de La Rochefoucauld
A man who is ungrateful is sometimes less to blame for it than his benefactor.

François de La Rochefoucauld
A weak mind is the only defect out of our power to mend.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Men would not live long in social contact unless they were deceived by one another.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There are few honest women who are not tired of what they do.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Fortunate people seldom mend their ways, for when good luck crowns their misdeeds with success they think it is because they are right.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We are all strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.

François de La Rochefoucauld
If we had no defects, we should not take so much pleasure in discovering those of others.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There are good marriages, but no delicious ones.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We try to make virtues out of the faults we have no wish to correct.

François de La Rochefoucauld