Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “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

202. “Our own distrust gives a fair pretence for the knavery of other people.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

203. “Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

204. “Love of glory, fear of shame, greed for fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others – all of these are often the causes of the bravery that is spoken so highly of by men.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

205. “We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

206. “Innocence is lucky if it finds the same protection as guilt.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

207. “Hope, deceitful as it is, carries us through life agreeably enough.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

208. “Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

209. “In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

210. “Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

211. “How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

212. “The secret of pleasing in conversation is not to explain too much everything; to say them half and leave a little for divination is a mark of the good opinion we have of others, and nothing flatters their self-love more.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

213. “We always get bored with those whom we bore.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

214. “Esteem never makes ingrates.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

215. “Women know not the whole of their coquetry.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

216. “We arrive at the various stages of life quite as novices.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

217. “The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

218. “It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

219. “As love increases, prudence diminishes.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

220. “Extreme boredom provides its own antidote.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

221. “The world is full of pots jeering at kettles.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

222. “There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

223. “If we took as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to deceive others by disguising what we are; we might appear as we are, without being at the trouble of any disguise.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

224. “Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

225. “True friendship destroys envy, and true love destroys coquetterie.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

226. “There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

227. “Humility is the altar upon which God wishes that we should offer Him His sacrifices.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

228. “It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

229. “The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

230. “What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

231. “Perseverance is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy; for it seems to be only the enduring of certain inclinations and opinions which men neither give themselves nor take away from themselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

232. “Only strong natures can really be sweet ones; those that seem sweet are in general only weak, and may easily turn sour.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

233. “It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

235. “For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura Our envy always outlives the felicity of its object.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

236. “Self-love is the love of a man’s own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

237. “Some men are so full of themselves that when they fall in love, they amuse themselves rather with their own passion than with theperson they love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

238. “The constancy of the wise is only the art of keeping disquietude to one’s self.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

239. “We often pay our debts not because it is only fair that we should, but to make future loans easier.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

240. “Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

241. “Gratitude is like credit; it is the backbone of our relations; frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

242. “Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

243. “Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character...”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

244. “The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

245. “Minds of moderate caliber ordinarily condemn everthing which is beyond their range.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

246. “The trust that we put in ourselves makes us feel trust in others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

247. “Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

248. “None but great men are capable of having great flaws.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

249. “People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

250. “The clemency of Princes is often but policy to win the affections of the people.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld