Writer · French · 1613 – 1680 · 243 quotes
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Writer · French · 1613 – 1680
In love we often doubt what we most believe.
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
There are heroes in evil as well as in good.
Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
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.
The passions are the only orators which always persuade.
We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
Taste may change, but inclination never.
We are very far from always knowing our own wishes.
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.
Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference.
We always get bored with those whom we bore.
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us.
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances.
People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune.
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.
There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.
Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.
There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.
Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.
We pardon to the extent that we love.
Only the contemptible fear contempt.
Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune; it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things; it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves.
Usually we praise only to be praised.
The defects and faults of 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, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
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.
