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A Lofty Mind Always Thinks Nobly, It Easily Creates Vivid, Agreeable, And Natural Fancies, Places Them In Their Best Light, Clothes Them With All Appropriate Adornments, Studies Others' Tastes, And Clears Away From Its Own Thoughts All That Is Useless And Disagreeable.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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A Lofty Mind Always

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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A Lofty Mind Always Thinks Nobly, It Easily Creates Vivid, Agreeable, And Natural Fancies, Places Them In Their Best Light, Clothes Them With All Appropriate Adornments, Studies Others' Tastes, And Clears Away From Its Own Thoughts All That Is Useless And Disagreeable.

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The Esteem Of Good Men Is The Reward Of Our Worth, But The Reputation Of The World In General Is The Gift Of Our Fate.

One Should Treat One's Fate As One Does One's Health; Enjoy It When It Is Good, Be Patient With It When It Is Poor, And Never Attempt Any Drastic Cure Save As An Ultimate Resort.

Ordinary Men Commonly Condemn What Is Beyond Them.

That Conduct Often Seems Ridiculous The Secret Reasons Of Which Are Wise And Solid.

Behind Many Acts That Are Thought Ridiculous There Lie Wise And Weighty Motives.

It Appears That Nature Has Hid At The Bottom Of Our Hearts Talents And Abilities Unknown To Us. It Is Only The Passions That Have The Power Of Bringing Them To Light, And Sometimes Give Us Views More True And More Perfect Than Art Could Possibly Do.

Neither The Sun Nor Death Can Be Looked At Steadily.

There Are Follies As Catching As Contagious Disorders.

He Is A Truly Virtuous Man Who Wishes Always To Be Open To The Observation Of Honest Men.

Women's Virtue Is Frequently Nothing But A Regard To Their Own Quiet And A Tenderness For Their Reputation.

Nothing Is Rarer Than Real Goodness.

Everyone Takes Pleasure In Returning Small Obligations, Many People Acknowledge Moderate Ones; But There Are Only A Scarce Few Who Do Not Pay Great Ones With Ingratitude.

We Should Scarcely Desire Things Ardently If We Were Perfectly Acquainted With What We Desire.

There Is Nothing Men Are So Generous Of As Advice.

Sometimes In Life Situations Develop That Only The Half-crazy Can Get Out Of.

However Evil Men May Be They Dare Not Be Openly Hostile To Virtue, And So When They Want To Attack It They Pretend To Find It Spurious , Or Impute Crimes To It.

What Makes False Reckoning, As Regards Gratitude, Is That The Pride Of The Giver And The Receiver Cannot Agree As To The Value Of The Benefit.

Self-love, As It Happens To Be Well Or Ill Conducted, Constitutes Virtue And Vice.

We Have More Ability Than Will Power, And It Is Often An Excuse To Ourselves That We Imagine That Things Are Impossible.

In All Aspects Of Life, We Take On A Part And An Appearance To Seem To Be What We Wish To Be--and Thus The World Is Merely Composed Of Actors.

There Is A Form Of Eminence Which Does Not Depend On Fate; It Is An Air Which Sets Us Apart And Seems To Prtend Great Things; It Is The Value Which We Unconsciously Attach To Ourselves; It Is The Quality Which Wins Us Deference Of Others; More Than Birth, Position, Or Ability, It Gives Us Ascendance.

There Are No Circumstances, However Unfortunate, That Clever People Do Not Extract Some Advantage From.

Bodily Labor Alleviates The Pains Of The Mind And From This Arises The Happiness Of The Poor

Cunning And Treachery Are The Offspring Of Incapacity.

We Take Less Pains To Be Happy, Than To Appear So.

A Resolution Never To Deceive Exposes A Man To Be Often Deceived.

Simplicity Is A Delicate Imposition.

He That Would Be A Great Man Must Learn To Turn Every Accident To Some Advantage.

The Most Sure Method Of Subjecting Yourself To Be Deceived Is To Consider Yourself More Cunning Than Others.

Fortune And Humor Govern The World.

The Best Way To Rise In Society Is To Use All Possible Means Of Persuading People That One Has Already Risen In Society.

Moderation Is Caused By The Fear Of Exciting The Envy And Contempt Which Those Merit Who Are Intoxicated With Their Good Fortune; It Is A Vain Display Of Our Strength Of Mind, And In Short The Moderation Of Men At Their Greatest Height Is Only A Desire To Appear Greater Than Their Fortune.

Bravery In Simple Soldiers Is A Dangerous Trade, To Which They Have Bound Themselves To Get Their Livelihood.

The Strongest Symptom Of Wisdom In Man Is His Being Sensible Of His Own Follies.

It Requires Greater Virtues To Support Good Fortune Than Bad.

Idleness Is More An Infirmity Of The Mind Than Of The Body.

If One Acts Rightly And Honestly, It Is Difficult To Decide Whether It Is The Effect Of Integrity Or Skill.

Nothing Is More Ridiculous In Old People That Were Once Good-looking, Than To Forget That They Are Not So Still.

The Height Of Ability In The Least Able Consists In Knowing How To Submit To The Good Leadership Of Others.

It Is A Mistake To Imagine, That The Violent Passions Only, Such As Ambition And Love, Can Triumph Over The Rest. Idleness, Languid As It Is, Often Masters Them All; She Influences All Our Designs And Actions, And Insensibly Consumes And Destroys Both Passions And Virtues.

There Are People Who, Like New Songs, Are In Vogue Only For A Time.

The Common Foible Of Women Who Have Been Handsome Is To Forget That They Are No Longer So.

The Vivacity That Augments With Years Is Not Far From Folly.

When We Are Unable To Find Tranquility Within Ourselves, It Is Useless To Seek It Elsewhere.

There Is Such A Thing As A General Revolution Which Changes The Taste Of Men As It Changes The Fortunes Of The World.

There Are Fine Things That Are More Brilliant When They Are Unfinished Than When Finished Too Much.

Nothing Should Lessen Our Satisfaction With Ourselves As Much As When We Notice That We Disapprove Of Something At One Time That We Approve Of At Another Time.

The Heat Of Youth Is Not More Opposed To Safety Than The Coldness Of Age.

The Breeding We Give Young People Is Ordinarily But An Additional Self-love, By Which We Make Them Have A Better Opinion Of Themselves.

Few Know How To Be Old.

He Who Refuses Praise The First Time That It Is Offered Does So Because He Would Hear It A Second Time.

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

There Is A Sort Of Love Whose Very Excessiveness Prevents The Lover's Being Jealous.

There Are Reproaches Which Praise, And Praises Which Defame.

We Sometimes Condemn The Present, By Praising The Past; And Show Our Contempt Of What Is Now, By Our Esteem For What Is No More.

We Get So Much In The Habit Of Wearing Disguises Before Others That We Finally Appear Disguised Before Ourselves.

As It Is The Mark Of Great Minds To Say Many Things In A Few Words, So It Is That Of Little Minds To Use Many Words To Say Nothing.

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.

To Praise Great Actions Is In Some Sense To Share Them.

The Gallantry Of The Mind Consists In Agreeable Flattery.

We Are Deceived If We Think That Mind And Judgment Are Two Different Matters: Judgment Is But The Extent Of The Light Of The Mind. This Light Penetrates To The Bottom Of Matters; It Remarks All That Can Be Remarked, And Perceives What Appears Imperceptible. Therefore We Must Agree That It Is The Extent Of The Light In The Mind That Produces All The Effects Which We Attribute To Judgment.

Female Gossips Are Generally Actuated By Active Ignorance.

Civility Is A Desire To Receive Civilities, And To Be Accounted Well-bred.

When You Plant A Seed Of Love, It Is You That Blossoms. Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom From The Patterns That Bind You There Are Two Kinds Of Faithfulness In Love: One Is Based On Forever Finding New Things To Love In The Loved One; The Other Is Based On Our Pride In Being Faithful.

Passion Very Often Makes The Wisest Men Fools, And Very Often Too Inspires The Greatest Fools With Wit.

Our Virtues Are Often, In Reality, No Better Than Vices Disguised.

There Are Few Good Women Who Do Not Tire Of Their Role.

The Mind Cannot Long Play The Heart's Role.

Time's Chariot-wheels Make Their Carriage-road In The Fairest Face.

We Should Wish For Few Things With Eagerness, If We Perfectly Knew The Nature Of That Which Was The Object Of Our Desire.

We Often Pride Ourselves On Even The Most Criminal Passions, But Envy Is A Timid And Shamefaced Passion We Never Dare To Acknowledge.

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

Affected Simplicity Is An Elegant Imposture.

We Can Be More Clever Than One, But Not More Clever Than All.

We Are So Used To Dissembling With Others That In Time We Come To Deceive And Dissemble With Ourselves.

We Often Persuade Ourselves To Love People Who Are More Powerful Than We Are, Yet Interest Alone Produces Our Friendship; We Do Not Give Our Hearts Away For The Good We Wish To Do, But For That We Expect To Receive.

Quarrels Would Not Last Long If The Fault Was Only On One Side.

Happiness Does Not Consist In Things Themselves But In The Relish We Have Of Them.

In Love We Often Doubt What We Most Believe.

Kings Do With Men As With Pieces Of Money; They Give Them What Value They Please, And We Are Obliged To Receive Them At Their Current And Not At Their Real Value.

We Often Credit Ourselves With Vices The Reverse Of What We Have, Thus When Weak We Boast Of Our Obstinacy.

The Ambitious Deceive Themselves In Proposing An End To Their Ambition; That End, When Attained, Becomes A Means.

We Sometimes Imagine We Hate Flattery, But We Only Hate The Way We Are Flattered.

The Man Whom No One Pleases Is Much More Unhappy Than The Man Who Pleases No One.

How Deceitful Hope May Be, Yet She Carries Us On Pleasantly To The End Of Life.

Death And The Sun Are Not To Be Looked At Steadily.

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.

In The Presence Of Some People We Inevitably Depart From Ourselves: We Are Inaccurate, We Say Things We Do Not Feel, And Talk Nonsense. When We Get Home We Are Conscious That We Have Made Fools Of Ourselves. Never Go Near These People.

As The Great Ones Of This World Are Unable To Bestow Health Of Body Or Peace Of Mind, We Always Pay Too High A Price For Any Good They Can Do.

We Easily Forget Crimes That Are Known To None But Ourselves.

Our Wisdom Lies As Much At The Mercy Of Fortune As Our Possessions Do.

We Never Desire Strongly, What We Desire Rationally.

It Is The Habit Of Mediocre Minds To Condemn All That Is Beyond Their Grasp.

One Is Never Fortunate Or As Unfortunate As One Imagines.

The Passions Often Engender Their Contraries.

Idleness And Fear Keeps Us In The Path Of Duty, But Our Virtue Often Gets The Praise.

It Is Easier To Understand Mankind In General Than Any Individual Man.

The Heart Of Man Ever Finds A Constant Succession Of Passions, So That The Destroying And Pulling Down Of One Proves Generally Tobe Nothing Else But The Production And The Setting Up Of Another.

The Whimsicalness Of Our Own Humor Is A Thousand Times More Fickle And Unaccountable Than What We Blame So Much In Fortune.

Selfishness Is The Grand Moving Principle Of Nine-tenths Of Our Actions.

One Can Find Women Who Have Never Had One Love Affair, But It Is Rare Indeed To Find Any Who Have Had Only One.

The Happiness And Misery Of Men Depend No Less On Temper Than Fortune.

A True Friend Is The Greatest Of All Blessings, And That Which We Take The Least Care Of All To Acquire.

It Is Sometimes A Point Of As Much Cleverness To Know To Make Good Use Of Advice From Others As To Be Able Give Good Advice To Oneself.

Were We Perfectly Acquainted With The Object, We Should Never Passionately Desire It.

Satire Is At Once The Most Agreeable And Most Dangerous Of Mental Qualities. It Always Pleases When It Is Refined, But We Always Fear Those Who Use It Too Much; Yet Satire Should Be Allowed When Unmixed With Spite, And When The Person Satirized Can Join In The Satire.

There Is Something To Be Said For Jealousy, Because It Only Designs The Preservation Of Some Good Which We Either Have Or Think Wehave A Right To. But Envy Is A Raging Madness That Cannot Bear The Wealth Or Fortune Of Others.

Our Minds Are Lazier Than Our Bodies.

He Is Safe Who Admits No One To His Confidence.

The Hate Of Favourites Is Only A Love Of Favour. The Envy Of Not Possessing It, Consoles And Softens Its Regrets By The Contempt It Evinces For Those Who Possess It, And We Refuse Them Our Homage, Not Being Able To Detract From Them What Attracts That Of The Rest Of The World.

Some Follies Are Caught, Like Contagious Diseases.

There Are Two Sorts Of Constancy In Love One Arises From Continually Discovering In The Loved Person New Subjects For Love, The Other Arises From Our Making A Merit Of Being Constant.

We May Sooner Be Brought To Love Them That Hate Us, Than Them That Love Us More Than We Would Have Them Do.

We Acknowledge That We Should Not Talk Of Our Wives; But We Seem Not To Know That We Should Talk Still Less Of Ourselves.

We Can Never Be Certain Of Our Courage Until We Have Faced Danger.

It Is No Tragedy To Do Ungrateful People Favors, But It Is Unbearable To Be Indebted To A Scoundrel.

Ungrateful People

In The Misfortunes Of Our Best Friends We Always Find Something Not Altogether Displeasing To Us.

Treachery Is More Often The Effect Of Weakness Than Of A Formed Design.

Sometimes Accidents Happen In Life From Which We Have Need Of A Little Madness To Extricate Ourselves Successfully

The Most Violent Passions Sometimes Leave Us At Rest, But Vanity Agitates Us Constantly.

Most Of Our Faults Are More Pardonable Than The Means We Use To Conceal Them.

Humility Is Often Only Feigned Submission Which People Use To Render Others Submissive. It Is A Subterfuge Of Pride Which Lowers Itself In Order To Rise.

What Renders Other People's Vanity Insufferable Is That It Wounds Our Own.

In Order To Succeed In The World People Do Their Upmost To Appear Successful.

Numberless Arts Appear Foolish Whose Secret Motives Are Most Wise And Weighty.

Sometimes A Fool Has Talent, But Never Judgment.

Nothing Is So Catching As Example.

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example; Never Was There Any Considerable Good Or Ill Done That Does Not Produce Its Like. We Imitate Good Actions Through Emulation, And Had Ones Through A Malignity In Our Nature, Which Shame Conceals, And Example Sets At Liberty.

We Are Much Mistaken If We Think That Men Are Always Brave From A Principle Of Valor, Or Women Chaste From A Principle Of Modesty.

The Intellect Of The Generality Of Women Serves More To Fortify Their Folly Than Their Reason.

The Cunningest Dissimulation Is When A Man Pretends To Be Caught In The Traps Others Set For Him; And A Man Is Never So Easily Over-reached As When He Is Contriving To Over-reach Others.

When We Exaggerate Our Friends' Tenderness Towards Us, It Is Often Less From Gratitude Than From A Desire To Exhibit Our Own Virtue.

We Do Not Praise Others, Ordinarily, But In Order To Be Praised Ourselves.

We Only Confess Our Little Faults To Persuade People That We Have No Big Ones.

Keeping Secrets

We Promise According To Our Hopes And Perform According To Our Fears.

To Establish Yourself In The World A Person Must Do All They Can To Appear Already Established.

Those Who Occupy Their Minds With Small Matters, Generally Become Incapable Of Greatness.

We Frequently Are Troublesome To Others, When We Think It Impossible For Us Ever To Be So.

Love Of Glory, Fear Of Shame, Greed For Fortune, The Desire To Make Life Agreeable And Comfortable, And The Wish To Depreciate Others - All Of These Are Often The Causes Of The Bravery That Is Spoken So Highly Of By Men.

Idleness And Constancy Fix The Mind To What It Finds Easy And Agreeable. This Habit Always Confines And Cramps Up Our Knowledge; And No One Has Ever Taken The Trouble To Stretch And Carry His Understanding As Far As It Could Go.

Men Are Often So Foolish As To Boast And Value Themselves Upon Their Passions, Even Those That Are Most Vicious. But Envy Is A Passion So Full Of Cowardice And Shame That No One Every Ever Had The Confidence To Own It.

Fortune Never Seems So Blind To Any As To Those On Whom She Bestows No Favors.

Moderation Is A Fear Of Falling Into That Envy And Contempt Which Those Who Grow Giddy With Their Good Fortune Quite Justly Draw Upon Themselves. It Is A Vain Boasting Of The Greatness Of Our Mind.

We Torment Ourselves Rather To Make It Appear That We Are Happy Than To Become So.

To Boast That One Never Flirts Is Actually A Kind Of Flirtation.

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

Passions Often Produce Their Contraries: Avarice Sometimes Leads To Prodigality, And Prodigality To Avarice; We Are Often Obstinate Through Weakness And Daring Through Timidity.

Self-love Is More Cunning Than The Most Cunning Man In The World.

Confidence Always Pleases Those Who Receive It. It Is A Tribute We Pay To Their Merit, A Deposit We Commit To Their Trust, A Pledge That Gives Them A Claim Upon Us, A Kind Of Dependence To Which We Voluntarily Submit.

We Often Shed Tears That Deceive Ourselves After Deceiving Others.

Deceiving Others

Women Find It Far More Difficult To Overcome Their Inclination To Coquetry Than To Overcome Their Love.

Boredom ... Causes Us To Neglect More Duties Than Does Interest.

The Only Good Imitations Are Those That Poke Fun At Bad Originals.

We Are Never So Generous As When Giving Advice.

There Is Great Skill In Knowing How To Conceal One's Skill.

All Men Are Equally Proud. The Only Difference Is That Not All Take The Same Methods Of Showing It.

Weak People Cannot Be Sincere.

There Are Heroes Of Wickedness, As There Are Of Goodness.

We Are More Interested In Making Others Believe We Are Happy Than In Trying To Be Happy Ourselves.

Make Others Happy

The Pleasure Of Love Is In Loving; We Are Happier In The Passion We Feel Than In What We Inspire.

A Man For Whom Accident Discovers Sense, Is Not A Rational Being. A Man Only Is So Who Understands, Who Distinguishes, Who Tests It.

We Often In Our Misfortunes Take That For Constancy And Patience Which Is Only Dejection Of Mind; We Suffer Without Daring To Holdup Our Heads, Just As Cowards Let Themselves Be Knocked On The Head Because They Have Not Courage To Strike Back.

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

Gallantry Of Mind Consists In Saying Flattering Things In An Agreeable Manner.

We Are Not Fond Of Praising, And Never Praise Any One Except From Interested Motives. Praise Is A Clever, Concealed, And Delicate Flattery, Which Gratifies In Different Ways The Giver And The Receiver. The One Takes It As A Recompense Of His Merit, And The Other Bestows It To Display His Equity And Discernment.

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

Love Often Leads On To Ambition, But Seldom Does One Return From Ambition To Love.

Happiness Is In The Taste, And Not In The Things.

It Is A Common Fault Never To Be Satisfied With Our Fortune, Nor Dissatisfied With Our Understanding.

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.

We Are Never Either So Fortunate Or So Misfortunate As We Imagine.

The Extreme Delight We Experience In Talking About Ourselves Should Warn Us That Those Who Listen Do Not Share It.

People Are More Slanderous From Vanity Than From Malice.

If We Are To Judge Of Love By Its Consequences, It More Nearly Resembles Hatred Than Friendship.

Nature Creates Ability; Luck Provides It With Opportunity.

There Are Many Predicaments In Life That One Must Be A Bit Crazy To Escape From.

If We Did Not Flatter Ourselves, The Flattery Of Others Could Never Harm Us.

All The Passions Are Nothing Else Than Different Degrees Of Heat And Cold Of The Blood.

Novelty Is To Love Like Bloom To Fruit; It Gives A Luster Which Is Easily Effaced, But Never Returns.

In Love The Deceit Generally Outstrips The Distrust.

We Frequently Do Good In Order To Enable Us To Do Evil Later With Impunity Exemption Of Punishment.

Things Often Offer Themselves To Our Mind In A More Finished Form In The Very First Thought, Than We Might Have Made Them By Muchart And Study.

What We Take For Virtue Is Often Nothing But An Assemblage Of Different Actions, And Of Different Interests, That Fortune Or Our Industry Knows How To Arrange.

Those Who Are Condemned To Death Affect Sometimes A Constancy And Contempt For Death Which Is Only The Fear Of Facing It; So That One May Say That This Constancy And Contempt Are To Their Mind What The Bandage Is To Their Eyes.

It Is A Wearisome Disease To Preserve Health By Too Strict A Regimen.

It Is Harder To Hide The Feelings We Have Than To Feign The Ones We Do Not Have.

One Man May Be More Cunning Than Another, But No One Can Be More Cunning Than All The World.

It Is Praiseworthy Even To Attempt A Great Action.

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.

If We Are Incapable Of Finding Peace In Ourselves, It Is Pointless To Search Elsewhere.

Even Women Are Perfect At The Outset.

A Man Is Perhaps Ungrateful, But Often Less Chargeable With Ingratitude Than His Benefactor Is.

A Woman Is Faithful To Her First Lover For A Long Time - Unless She Happens To Take A Second.

Youth Is A Continual Intoxication; It Is The Fever Of Reason.

Women Know Not The Whole Of Their Coquetry.

One Can No More Look Steadily At Death Than At The Sun.

The Most Brilliant Fortunes Are Often Not Worth The Littleness Required To Gain Them.

Politeness Of Mind Consists In Thinking Chaste And Refined Thoughts.

In The Intercourse Of Life, We Please More By Our Faults Than By Our Good Qualities.

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