Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes And Sayings

Timidity Is A Fault For Which It Is Dangerous To Reprove Persons Whom We Wish To Correct Of It.

Mediocre Minds Usually Dismiss Anything Which Reaches Beyond Their Own Understanding.

There Are Heroes In Evil As Well As In Good.

Our Virtues Are Often, In Reality, No Better Than Vices Disguised.

If We Did Not Flatter Ourselves, The Flattery Of Others Could Never Harm Us.

We Seldom Praise Anyone In Good Earnest, Except Such As Admire Us.

A Man Is Sometimes As Different From Himself As He Is From Others.

The Greatest Part Of Intimate Confidences Proceed From A Desire Either To Be Pitied Or Admired.

We Are Very Far From Always Knowing Our Own Wishes.

The Desire Of Talking Of Ourselves, And Showing Those Faults We Do Not Mind Having Seen, Makes Up A Good Part Of Our Sincerity.

Only The Contemptible Fear Contempt.

A True Friend Is The Greatest Of All Blessings, And That Which We Take The Least Care Of All To Acquire.

The Reason That Lovers Never Weary Each Other Is Because They Are Always Talking About Themselves.

It Is Not In The Power Of Even The Most Crafty Dissimulation To Conceal Love Long, Where It Really Is, Nor To Counterfeit It Long Where It Is Not.

We Do Not Praise Others, Ordinarily, But In Order To Be Praised Ourselves.

There Is Nothing Men Are So Generous Of As Advice.

A Great Many Men's Gratitude Is Nothing But A Secret Desire To Hook In More Valuable Kindnesses Hereafter.

If We Judge Love By Most Of Its Effects, It Resembles Rather Hatred Than Affection.

No Men Are Oftener Wrong Than Those That Can Least Bear To Be So.

He Is Not To Pass For A Man Of Reason Who Stumbles Upon Reason By Chance But He Who Knows It And Can Judge It And Has A True Taste For It.

Whatever Good Things People Say Of Us, They Tell Us Nothing New.

When Our Vices Leave Us, We Like To Imagine It Is We Who Are Leaving Them.

Men Often Pass From Love To Ambition, But They Seldom Come Back Again From Ambition To Love.

There Is Only One Kind Of Love, But There Are A Thousand Imitations.

What Keeps Us From Abandoning Ourselves Entirely To One Vice, Often, Is The Fact That We Have Several.

If There Be A Love Pure And Free From The Admixture Of Our Other Passions, It Is That Which Lies Hidden In The Bottom Of Our Heart, And Which We Know Not Ourselves.

Nature Seems At Each Man's Birth To Have Marked Out The Bounds Of His Virtues And Vices, And To Have Determined How Good Or How Wicked That Man Shall Be Capable Of Being.

It's The Height Of Folly To Want To Be The Only Wise One.

What We Call Generosity Is For The Most Part Only The Vanity Of Giving; And We Exercise It Because We Are More Fond Of That Vanity Than Of The Thing We Give.

Not All Those Who Know Their Minds Know Their Hearts As Well.

How Is It That We Remember The Least Triviality That Happens To Us, And Yet Not Remember How Often We Have Recounted It To The Same Person?

The Man That Thinks He Loves His Mistress For Her Own Sake Is Mightily Mistaken.

Nothing Hinders A Thing From Being Natural So Much As The Straining Ourselves To Make It Seem So.

Perfect Valor Is To Do, Without A Witness, All That We Could Do Before The Whole World.

We Get So Much In The Habit Of Wearing Disguises Before Others That We Finally Appear Disguised Before Ourselves.

We Would Rather Speak Ill Of Ourselves Than Not Talk About Ourselves At All.

Never Give Anyone The Advice To Buy Or Sell Shares, Because The Most Benevolent Price Of Advice Can Turn Out Badly.

I Have Always Been An Admirer. I Regard The Gift Of Admiration As Indispensable If One Is To Amount To Something; I Don't Know Where I Would Be Without It.

The One Thing People Are The Most Liberal With, Is Their Advice.

As One Grows Older, One Becomes Wiser And More Foolish.

As One Grows Older, One Becomes Wiser And More Foolish.

We Only Confess Our Little Faults To Persuade People That We Have No Big Ones.

It Is Easier To Know Men In General, Than Men In Particular.

Those Who Are Incapable Of Committing Great Crimes Do Not Readily Suspect Them In Others.

Love Often Leads On To Ambition, But Seldom Does One Return From Ambition To Love.

It Is From A Weakness And Smallness Of Mind That Men Are Opinionated; And We Are Very Loath To Believe What We Are Not Able To Comprehend.

We Are So Used To Dissembling With Others That In Time We Come To Deceive And Dissemble With Ourselves.

We May Sooner Be Brought To Love Them That Hate Us, Than Them That Love Us More Than We Would Have Them Do.

There Is Many A Virtuous Woman Weary Of Her Trade.

Women's Virtue Is Frequently Nothing But A Regard To Their Own Quiet And A Tenderness For Their Reputation.