Francois De La Rochefoucauld
136 quotations
Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense.
He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.
We pardon to the extent that we love.
It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care to acquire.
Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.
We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
There are few good women who do not tire of their role.
Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.
We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.
We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.
When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.
It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen.
There are heroes in evil as well as in good.
Hope and fear are inseparable.
Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.
The happiness or unhappiness of men depends as much on their humors as on fortune.
Fortune and humor govern the world.
Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.