Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

52. “The best way to rise in society is to use all possible means of persuading people that one has already risen in society.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

53. “The more we love, the nearer we are to hate.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

54. “Whatever ignominy or disgrace we have incurred, it is almost always in our power to reestablish our reputation.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

55. “Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

56. “There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

57. “Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

58. “Hatred is stronger than friendship.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

59. “Strength and weakness of mind are misnomers; they are really nothing but the good or bad health of our bodily organs.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

60. “We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

61. “We are very far from always knowing our own wishes.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

62. “Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

63. “We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

64. “Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

65. “None deserve praise for being good who have not the spirit to be bad: goodness, for the most part, is nothing but indolence or weakness of will.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

66. “A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

67. “True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

68. “To know how to hide one’s ability is great skill.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

69. “Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

70. “Death and the sun are not to be looked at steadily.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

71. “One forgives to the degree that one loves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

72. “Sometimes in life situations develop that only the half-crazy can get out of.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

73. “The accent of one’s birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one’s speech.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

74. “Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

75. “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.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

76. “Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

77. “Women find it far more difficult to overcome their inclination to coquetry than to overcome their love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

78. “Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

79. “A man’s happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

80. “When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

81. “One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

82. “The heart is forever making the head its fool.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

83. “A fashionable woman is always in love – with herself.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

84. “Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

85. “Narrow minds think nothing right that is above their own capacity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

86. “In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

87. “We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

88. “As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

89. “True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

90. “Youth is a perpetual intoxication; it is a fever of the mind.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

91. “Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

92. “Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

93. “He who lives without folly isn’t so wise as he thinks.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

94. “Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

95. “How deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

96. “The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

97. “It is the habit of mediocre minds to condemn all that is beyond their grasp.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

99. “The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

100. “Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld