Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

152. “It is as easy to deceive one’s self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

153. “The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

154. “Hope and fear are inseparable.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

155. “Those only are despicable who fear to be despised.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

156. “A gentleman may love like a lunatic, but not like a beast.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

157. “Old fools are greater fools than young ones.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

158. “Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

159. “It is necessary, in order to know things well, to know the particulars of them; and these, being infinite, make our knowledge eversuperficial and imperfect.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

160. “There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

161. “In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

162. “Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

163. “Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

164. “Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually merely inertia or lack of will-power.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

165. “There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

166. “To safeguard one’s health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness, indeed.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

167. “A good woman is a hidden treasure; who discovers her will do well not to boast about it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

168. “Prudence and love are inconsistent; in proportion as the last increases, the other decreases.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

169. “Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

170. “The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

171. “There are fine things that are more brilliant when they are unfinished than when finished too much.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

172. “He who refuses praise the first time that it is offered does so because he would hear it a second time.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

173. “Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

174. “We should not judge a man’s merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

175. “When love becomes labored we welcome an act of infidelity towards ourselves to free us from fidelity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

176. “Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

177. “There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

178. “Nothing is so contagious as example; never was there any considerable good or ill done that does not produce its like. We imitate good actions through emulation, and had ones through a malignity in our nature, which shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

179. “Some beautiful things are more dazzling when they are still imperfect than when they have been too perfectly crafted.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

180. “Jealousy is nothing more than a fear of abandonment.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

181. “The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

182. “For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

183. “The great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

184. “We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

185. “Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

186. “Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

187. “Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. It is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

188. “A man’s worth has its season, like fruit.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

189. “We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

190. “We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

191. “The less you trust others, the less you will be deceived.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

192. “There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

193. “Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

194. “Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

195. “To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

196. “The pleasure of love is in loving.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

197. “Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

198. “Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

199. “Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

200. “Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld