Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Often we are firm from weakness, and audacious from timidity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Weakness is more opposed to virtue than is vice.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

He is safe who admits no one to his confidence.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Hope and fear are inseparable. There is no hope without fear, nor any fear without hope.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Our minds are as much given to laziness as our bodies.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It is not always for virtue's sake that women are virtuous.

— 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

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more…

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men may boast of their great actions; but they are more often the effects of chance than of design.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a…

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Great men's honor ought always to be measured by the methods they made use of in attaining it.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“87.—Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aimé Martin, "Which may…

— François de La Rochefoucauld

Envy is destroyed by true friendship, as coquetry by true love.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can to seem established there already.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“451.—No fools so wearisome as those who have some wit. 452.—No”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

“Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Idleness is more an infirmity of the mind than of the body.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Passion often makes a fool of the cleverest man and often makes the most foolish men clever

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Our virtues are most often but our vices disguised

— François De La Rochefoucauld

The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts himself

— François De La Rochefoucauld

The only good copies are those which make us see the absurdity of bad originals.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We are never so easily deceived as when we imagine we are deceiving others.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There are few women whose charm survives their beauty.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld