François de La Rochefoucauld - Maxims

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If we judge love by the majority of its results, it resembles hatred more than friendship.

François de La Rochefoucauld
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or feign it where it does not.

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
If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.

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

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

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
A weak mind is the only defect out of our power to mend.

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
We are all strong enough to bear the misfortunes 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
Of all violent passions, the least unbecoming to a woman is love.

François de La Rochefoucauld