Top 500 François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “All women seem by nature to be coquettes.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

402. “If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

404. “A man seldom finds people unthankful, as long as he remains in a condition of benefiting them further.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

406. “Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

407. “The mind is always the patsy of the heart.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

408. “Fortune makes our virtues and vices visible, just as light does the objects of sight.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

411. “Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

412. “It is with sincere affection or friendship as with ghosts and apparitions, – a thing that everybody talks of, and scarce any hath seen.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

413. “The heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

414. “It’s the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

415. “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

416. “Affected simplicity is an elegant imposture.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

418. “Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

419. “That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver’s pride and the receiver’s cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

420. “Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

421. “We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

422. “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

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

425. “Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

427. “Love, like fire, cannot subsist without constant impulse; it ceases to live from the moment it ceases to hope or to fear.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

428. “If it were not for poetry, few men would ever fall in love.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

429. “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

430. “We are much mistaken if we think that men are always brave from a principle of valor, or women chaste from a principle of modesty.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

431. “The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

432. “We make promises to the extent that we hope-and keep them to the extent that we fear.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

433. “Moderation is a fear of falling into that envy and contempt which those who grow giddy with their good fortune quite justly draw upon themselves. It is a vain boasting of the greatness of our mind.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

434. “The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

435. “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

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

437. “Our repentances are generally not so much a concern and remorse for the harm we have done, as a fear of the harm we may have brought upon ourselves.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

438. “It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

440. “We torment ourselves rather to make it appear that we are happy than to become so.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

442. “Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

444. “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

445. “It is sometimes a point of as much cleverness to know to make good use of advice from others as to be able give good advice to oneself.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

447. “Nothing is rarer than true good nature; they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

450. “It is worth nothing to be young without being beautiful, nor to be beautiful without being young.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld