Quill / Authors / Francois de La Rochefoucauld quotes
Francois de La Rochefoucauld quotes
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613 to 1680) was a French duke and soldier who fought in the Fronde, the French civil wars of 1648 to 1653, and was badly wounded. His Maxims first appeared in 1665. Quill quotes the English translation by Friswell, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims.
Almost every maxim says the same unsettling thing: self-love is behind more of your good behaviour than you'd like. Take him in small doses. One a day is bracing, and fifty in a row will make you suspicious of everyone you know, including yourself.
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Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Read Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims on Project Gutenberg
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
The pleasure of love is in loving, we are happier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire.
Man's merit, like the crops, has its season.
Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.
The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.
Perfect valour is to do without witnesses what one would do before all the world.
Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.
We have more idleness in the mind than in the body.
Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.
The desire to appear clever often prevents our being so.
To be a great man one should know how to profit by every phase of fortune.
We should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
Men will freely expose themselves at the beginning of an action, and relax and be easily discouraged if it should last.
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—Perfect bravery and sheer cowardice are two extremes rarely found. The space between them is vast, and embraces all other sorts of courage. The difference between them is not less than between faces and tempers. Men will freely expose themselves at the beginning of an action, and relax and be easily discouraged if it should last. Some are content to satisfy worldly honour, and beyond that will do little else. Some are not always equally masters of their timidity. Others allow themselves to be overcome by panic; others charge because they dare not remain at their posts. Some may be found whose courage …
A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness.
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—A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
If we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others would not hurt us.
Nothing is so infectious as example, and we never do great good or evil without producing the like.
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—Nothing is so infectious as example, and we never do great good or evil without producing the like. We imitate good actions by emulation, and bad ones by the evil of our nature, which shame imprisons until example liberates.
We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.
Few things are impossible in themselves; application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.
If we conquer our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
We pardon in the degree that we love.
Whatever disgrace we may have deserved, it is almost always in our power to re-establish our character.
Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.
We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune.
Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.
We should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as perfect as we can.
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We should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as perfect as we can. This is the reason that the majority of children please. It is because they are wrapt up in the air and manner nature has given them, and are ignorant of any other. They are changed and corrupted when they quit infancy, they think they should imitate what they see, and they …
We are never so ridiculous from the habits we have as from those that we affect to have.
The extreme delight we take in talking of ourselves should warn us that it is not shared by those who listen.
Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers.
The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our faults to a friend, but to show him his own.
In great matters we should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilise those that offer themselves.
We become so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that at last we are disguised to ourselves.
We have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an excuse we say things are impossible.
We should only be astonished at still being able to be astonished.
Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.
Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.
Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.
The reason which often prevents us abandoning a single vice is having so many.
Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.
Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous.
Flattery is base coin to which only our vanity gives currency.
Little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds see all and are not even hurt.
The mind attaches itself by idleness and habit to whatever is easy or pleasant.
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—The mind attaches itself by idleness and habit to whatever is easy or pleasant. This habit always places bounds to our knowledge, and no one has ever yet taken the pains to enlarge and expand his mind to the full extent of its capacities.
We sometimes differ more widely from ourselves than we do from others.
We should not judge of a man's merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them.
The happiness or unhappiness of men depends no less upon their dispositions than their fortunes.
We try to make a virtue of vices we are loth to correct.
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