Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

402. “The constancy of sages is nothing but the art of locking up their agitation in their hearts.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

403. “Unfaithfulness ought to extinguish love, and we should not be jealous when there is reason to be. Only those who give no grounds for jealousy are worthy of it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

404. “That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

405. “There are few things we should keenly desire if we really knew what we wanted.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

406. “The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

407. “Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

408. “Some people are like popular songs that you only sing for a short time.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

409. “The violence we do to ourselves in order to remain faithful to the one we love is hardly better than an act of infidelity.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

410. “Second-rate minds usually condemn everything beyond their grasp.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

411. “Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

412. “Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

413. “The vivacity that augments with years is not far from folly.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

414. “Our distrust justifies the deceit of others.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

415. “It is praiseworthy even to attempt a great action.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

416. “We often brag that we are never bored with ourselves, and are so vain as never to think ourselves bad company.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

417. “When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

418. “The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

419. “We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

420. “Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

421. “The dullness of certain people is sometimes a sufficient security against the attack of an artful man.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

422. “To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

423. “Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

424. “There are several remedies which will cure love, but there are no infallible ones.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

425. “Women do not know all their powers of flirtation.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

426. “Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

427. “Eloquence: saying the proper thing and stopping.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

428. “Nothing should lessen our satisfaction with ourselves as much as when we notice that we disapprove of something at one time that we approve of at another time.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

429. “The intellect of the generality of women serves more to fortify their folly than their reason.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

430. “The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

431. “The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

432. “In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

433. “The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

434. “Most women lament not the death of their lovers so much out of real affection for them, as because they would appear worthy of love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

435. “All women seem by nature to be coquettes.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

436. “Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

437. “We judge so superficially of things, that common words and actions spoke and done in an agreeable manner, with some knowledge of what passes in the world, often succeed beyond the greatest ability.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

438. “We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

439. “Madmen and fools see everything through the medium of humor.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

440. “The good or the bad fortune of men depends not less upon their own dispositions than upon fortune.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

441. “Moral severity in women is only a dress or paint which they use to set off their beauty.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

442. “Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

443. “We are eager to believe that others are flawed because we are eager to believe in what we wish for.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

444. “In love, the quickest is always the best cure.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

445. “One honor won is a surety for more.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

446. “All men are equally proud. The only difference is that not all take the same methods of showing it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

447. “We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

448. “The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

449. “Sometimes we meet a fool with wit, never one with discretion.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

450. “Self-love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them; and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld