Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

252. “True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

253. “The intention of cheating no one lays us open to being cheated ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

254. “As we grow older, we increase in folly – and in wisdom.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

255. “In the presence of some people we inevitably depart From ourselves: we are inaccurate, we say things we do not feel, And talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we Have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

256. “Conceit causes more conversation than wit.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

257. “People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

258. “What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors – in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

259. “Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

260. “Virtues lose themselves in self-interest, as rivers in the sea.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

261. “Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over philosophy.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

262. “The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

263. “Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

264. “We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger...”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

265. “When a man must force himself to be faithful in his love, this is hardly better than unfaithfulness.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

266. “Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

267. “Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

268. “We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

269. “We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

270. “The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

271. “We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

272. “All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

273. “Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

274. “Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

275. “Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

276. “In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

277. “The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

278. “Envy is destroyed by true friendship, as coquetry by true love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

279. “People are more slanderous from vanity than from malice.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

280. “The generality of friends puts us out of conceit with friendship; just as the generality of religious people puts us out of conceit with religion.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

281. “We forget our faults easily when they are known to ourselves alone.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

282. “Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

283. “It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

284. “What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

285. “Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

286. “If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

287. “It is with certain good qualities as with the senses; those who have them not can neither appreciate nor comprehend them in others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

288. “We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

289. “Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

290. “Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

291. “Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

292. “There is a kind of love, the excess of which forbids jealousy.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

293. “It is impossible to love a second time what we have really ceased to love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

294. “We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

295. “Nothing is more ridiculous in old people that were once good-looking, than to forget that they are not so still.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

296. “There are some bad qualities which make great talents.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

297. “Eloquence resides as much in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the expression of the face, as in the choice of words.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

298. “As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

299. “Great names abase, instead of elevating, those who do not know how to bear them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

300. “The fame of great men ought to be judged always by their big, fancy names.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld