Continued Insights from Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

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Inspiring Quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld - Page 3