Facts about Francois de La Rochefoucauld 
Summary
Francois de La Rochefoucauld was a famous Writer from France, who lived between September 15, 1613 and March 17, 1680. He became 66 years old.
Biography
He wrote the 1664 work Reflections ou Sentences et Maxime Morales (Maximizer), a collection of over 500 short, expressive and cynical reflections on life and society. He was a pessimist with scathing elegance meant that man's most virtuous deeds actually done by sheer selfishness and vanity, even if the person doing the act is not aware of the hidden motive of the same. Zodiac etc.
He is born under the zodiac virgo, who is known for Analyzing, Practical, Reflective, Observation, Thoughtful.
Our collection contains 173 quotes who is written / told by Francois, under the main topics: Love, Men, Wisdom, Women.
Here is some other popular authors who lived in the same timeframe: John Tillotson, William Penn, Blaise Pascal, John Arbuthnot, Christopher Wren, Francis Atterbury, Edmond Halley, Henry St. John, John Biddle, John Wilkins, Nicolas Boileau, Roger de Rabutin, Stanislaus I, Angelus Silesius, Richard Blackmore, Robert Boyle, John Philips, Edward Teach, Sarah Good, Jacques Marquette
Source / external links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_La_Rochefoucauld_(writer)
Famous quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld (173)
"It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves"
"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires"
"Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever"
"It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone"
"There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade"
"It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self"
"It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it"
"It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures"
"It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit"
"It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not"
"It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them"
"In love we often doubt what we most believe"
"In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge"
"In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances"
"If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength"
"If we judge love by most of its effects, it resembles rather hatred than affection"
"If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources"
"If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others"
"If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us"
"If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship"
"If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves"
"He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks"
"He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it"
"Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs"
"Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors"
"Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind"
"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example"
"Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead"
"Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites"
"Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency"
"Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed"
"They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones"
"The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech"
"Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples"
"Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible"
"Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well"
"Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding"
"However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention"
"Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new"
"We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation"
"We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude"
"Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on"
"In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another"
"When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time"
"We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy"
"We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes"
"The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves"
"Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself"
"Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone"
"However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else"
"Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route"
"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"
"We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire"
"The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second"
"Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay"
"It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated; and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend"
"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue"
"However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship"
"The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve"
"Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being"
"Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty"
"The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest"
"The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy"
"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love"
"We pardon to the extent that we love"
"We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others"
"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not"
"If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss"
"Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness"
"It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever"
"Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them"
"Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment"
"Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind"
"Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed"
"Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit"
"Conceit causes more conversation than wit"
"Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit"
"Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it"
"As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish"
"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"
"As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing"
"All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones"
"A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant"
"A wise man thinks it more advantageous not to join the battle than to win"
"A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire"
"A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice"
"A man's worth has its season, like fruit"
"A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others"
"A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter"
"We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us"
"We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them"
"We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions"
"We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own"
"We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it"
"We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves"
"We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves"
"We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves"
"We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue"
"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones"
"We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years"
"We are very far from always knowing our own wishes"
"We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others"
"We always get bored with those whom we bore"
"We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others"
"Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company"
"Usually we praise only to be praised"
"True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen"
"Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude"
"To know how to hide one's ability is great skill"
"To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die"
"Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it"
"Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected"
"There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune; it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things; it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves"
"There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means"
"There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other"
"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"
"There are heroes in evil as well as in good"
"There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess"
"There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do"
"There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness"
"There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices"
"The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice"
"The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices"
"You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one"
"Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation"
"Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?"
"Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person"
"What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several"
"What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given"
"Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended"
"We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all"
"We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them"
"We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them"
"We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done"
"The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her"
"The moderation of people in prosperity is the effect of a smooth and composed temper, owing to the calm of their good fortune"
"The mind is always the patsy of the heart"
"The mind cannot long play the heart's role"
"The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken"
"The intellect is always fooled by the heart"
"The heart is forever making the head its fool"
"The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune"
"That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest"
"Taste may change, but inclination never"
"Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing"
"Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them"
"Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of"
"Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself"
"Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted"
"Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does"
"Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences"
"Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side"
"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"
"People always complain about their memories, never about their minds"
"Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised"
"Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us"
"Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect"
"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"
"Only the contemptible fear contempt"
"One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines"
"One forgives to the degree that one loves"
"No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so"
"No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does"
"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"
"Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly"
"Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye"
"Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being"
"Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with"
"Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them"
"Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it"
"Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love"
"Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it"
"It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one"
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