Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We would rather see those to whom we do good, than those who do good to us.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There are people who would never have been in love, had they never heard love spoken of.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The heart is forever making the head its fool.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We arrive at the various stages of life quite as novices.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Madmen and fools see everything through the medium of humor.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own…

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Sometimes there is equal or more ability in knowing how to use good advice than there is in giving it.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There are few people who are not ashamed of their love affairs when the infatuation is over.

— Francois De La Rochefoucauld

There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men would not live in society long if they were not each others dupes.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There are some faults which, when well managed, make a greater figure than virtue itself.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Not to love is in love an infallible means of being loved.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There may be talent without position, but there is no position without some kind of talent.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

None but the contemptible are apprehensive of contempt.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

To boast that one never flirts is actually a kind of flirtation.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Virtue would not go to such lengths if vanity did not keep her company

— François De La Rochefoucauld

To know oneself is not necessarily to improve oneself

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

Sobriety is concern for one's health - or limited capacity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Grace is to the body, what good manners are to the mind

— François De La Rochefoucauld

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld