François de La Rochefoucauld - Passions Quotes

23 Sourced Quotes

View all François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.

François de La Rochefoucauld
It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Of all violent passions, the least unbecoming to a woman is 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
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
Absence extinguishes the minor passions and increases the great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Absence lessens the minor passions and increases the great ones, as the wind douses a candle and kindles a fire.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Absence diminishes weak passions and augments great ones; as the wind extinguishes tapers, but increases a conflagration.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Absence diminishes commonplace passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.

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

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

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

François de La Rochefoucauld
The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in that we arouse.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The same force which serves to resist love also makes it strong and lasting; and weak people, who are always shaken by passions, are almost never fulfilled by them.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Absence abates a moderate passion and intensifies a great one - as the wind blows out a candle but fans fire into flame.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Passion often makes a fool of the wisest man, and often makes the greatest fools wise.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We are by no means aware how much we are influenced by our passions.

François de La Rochefoucauld
Those who have had great passions are happy all their lives and would be unhappy to have been cured of them.

François de La Rochefoucauld
We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, but envy is a timid and shame-faced passion we never dare acknowledge.

François de La Rochefoucauld
If we resist our passions, it is more through their weakness than our strength.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The duration of passion is no more in our power than the duration of life.

François de La Rochefoucauld
The rudest man, inspired by passion, is more persuasive than the most eloquent man, if uninspired.

François de La Rochefoucauld