François de La Rochefoucauld

Find the best quotes, maxims and aphorisms of François de La Rochefoucauld

Biography : French moralist, author of maxims and memoirs.
Born: 1613 - Died: 1680
Period:
17th century
Place of birth: France
France

France

François de La Rochefoucauld - Quotes

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

pain

We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

love

We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

wisdom

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.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

truth

Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

love

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.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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

wisdom

Only the contemptible fear contempt.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

love

The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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 /

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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

Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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.
François de La Rochefoucauld /

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