Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The only thing constant in life is change.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

2. “To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

Featured in: Fitness Quotes

3. “Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

Featured in: Romantic Quotes

4. “Hope is the last thing that dies in man.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

5. “We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

6. “To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

7. “The only security is courage.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

8. “Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

9. “True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

10. “There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

11. “We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

12. “We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

13. “You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

14. “No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

15. “If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

16. “It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

17. “As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

18. “We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

19. “Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

20. “Nothing is rarer than real goodness.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

21. “Nothing is so contagious as example.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

22. “Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

23. “It is no tragedy to do ungrateful people favors, but it is unbearable to be indebted to a scoundrel.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

24. “Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

25. “We are never so generous as when giving advice.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

26. “The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

27. “We think very few people sensible, except those who are of our opinion.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

28. “Humility is the worst form of conceit.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

29. “Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

30. “One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

31. “Our minds are lazier than our bodies.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

32. “Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

33. “We forgive so long as we love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

34. “We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

35. “A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

36. “Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

37. “The duration of our passions is no more dependent on ourselves than the duration of our lives.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

38. “Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

39. “The greatest of all gifts is the power to estimate things at their true worth.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

40. “To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

41. “The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

42. “Weak people cannot be sincere.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

43. “We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

44. “Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

45. “There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

46. “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

47. “It requires greater virtues to support good fortune than bad.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

48. “How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

49. “The sure way to be cheated is to think one’s self more cunning than others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

50. “The old begin to complain of the conduct of the young when they themselves are no longer able to set a bad example.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld