Francois De La Rochefoucauld quotes

There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.

One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.

It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

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.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.

If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.

There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.

In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.

We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

Taste may change, but inclination never.

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.

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

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

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.

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.

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

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.