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A Man Often Thinks He Rules Himself, When All The While He Is Ruled And Managed; And While His Understanding Directs One Design, His Affections Imperceptibly Draw Him Into Another.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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A Man Often Thinks

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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A Man Often Thinks He Rules Himself, When All The While He Is Ruled And Managed; And While His Understanding Directs One Design, His Affections Imperceptibly Draw Him Into Another.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The Measure Of Great Men Should Always Be Measured By The Means They Have Used To Acquire It.

Our Aversion To Lying Is Commonly A Secret Ambition To Make What We Say Considerable, And Have Every Word Received With A Religious Respect.

Men Sometimes Think They Hate Flattery, But They Hate Only The Manner Of Flattering.

Some Accidents There Are In Life That A Little Folly Is Necessary To Help Us Out Of.

We Often Select Envenomed Praise Which, By A Reaction Upon Those We Praise, Shows Faults We Could Not Have Shown By Other Means.

Perfect Valour Consists In Doing Without Witnesses That Which We Would Be Capable Of Doing Before Everyone.

Wit Sometimes Enables Us To Act Rudely With Impunity.

It Is Easier To Appear Worthy Of A Position One Does Not Hold, Than Of The Office Which One Fills.

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

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.

Few Things Are Needed To Make A Wise Man Happy; Nothing Can Make A Fool Content; That Is Why Most Men Are Miserable.

What We Take For High-mindedness Is Very Often No Other Than Ambition Well Disguised, That Scorns Means Interests, Only To Pursuegreater.

Some People Are Like Popular Songs That You Only Sing For A Short Time.

The Appearances Of Goodness And Merit Often Meet With A Greater Reward From The World Than Goodness And Merit Themselves.

Preserving Health By Too Severe A Rule Is A Worrisome Malady.

The Desire Of Talking Of Ourselves, And Showing Those Faults We Do Not Mind Having Seen, Makes Up A Good Part Of Our Sincerity.

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.

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

Flattery Is A Kind Of Bad Money, To Which Our Vanity Gives Us Currency.

The Greatest Part Of Our Faults Are More Excusable Than The Methods That Are Commonly Taken To Conceal Them.

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

Those Only Are Despicable Who Fear To Be Despised.

The Moderation Of Fortunate People Comes From The Calm Which Good Fortune Gives To Their Tempers.

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

Many Men Are Contemptuous Of Riches; Few Can Give Them Away.

As We Grow Older, We Increase In Folly--and In Wisdom.

Everyone Praises His Heart, None Dare Praise Their Understanding.

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

In Infants, Levity Is A Prettiness; In Men A Shameful Defect; But In Old Age, A Monstrous Folly.

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

We Do Not Like To Praise, And Seldom Praise Anyone Without Self-interest.

We Come Altogether Fresh And Raw Into The Several Stages Of Life, And Often Find Ourselves Without Experience, Despite Our Years.

When We Enlarge Upon The Affection Our Friends Have For Us, This Is Very Often Not So Much Out Of A Sense Of Gratitude As From A Desire To Persuade People Of Our Own Great Worth, That Can Deserve So Much Kindness.

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.

Neither Love Nor Fire Can Subsist Without Perpetual Motion; Both Cease To Live So Soon As They Cease To Hope, Or To Fear.

Perpetual Motion

Jealousy Is Not Love, But Self-love.

Whatever Pretext We May Give For Our Affections, Often It Is Only Interest And Vanity Which Cause Them.

Nothing Is Rarer Than True Good Nature; They Who Are Reputed To Have It Are Generally Only Pliant Or Weak.

Our Greediness So Often Troubles Us, Making Us Run After So Many Things At The Same Time, That While We Too Eagerly Look After The Least We Miss The Greatest.

If Vanity Does Not Entirely Overthrow The Virtues, At Least It Makes Them All Totter.

We Do Not Despise All Those Who Have Vices, But We Do Despise Those That Have No Virtue.

It Is As Commendable To Think Well Of Oneself When Alone, As It Is Ridiculous To Speak Well Of Oneself Among Others.

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

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.

It Requires Greater Virtues To Support Good Fortune Than Bad.

Humility Is Often Only A Feigned Submissiveness By Which Men Hope To Bring Other People To Submit To Them; It Is A More Calculated Sort Of Pride.

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

The Reason We Do Not Let Our Friends See The Very Bottom Of Our Hearts Is Not So Much Distrust Of Them As Distrust Of Ourselves.

Virtue Is To The Soul What Health Is Tot He Body.

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

Το Know How To Profit By Good Advice, Requires Nearly As Much Ability As To Know How To Act For One'self.

We Rarely Ever Perceive Others As Being Sensible, Except For Those Who Agree With Us.

We Are Always Bored By The Very People By Whom It Is Vital Not To Be Bored.

It Is Difficult To Like Those Whom We Do Not Esteem; But It Is No Less So To Like Those Whom We Esteem More Than Ourselves.

Self-interest Makes Some People Blind, And Others Sharp-sighted.

The Soul's Maladies Have Their Relapses Like The Body's. What We Take For A Cure Is Often Just A Momentary Rally Or A New Form Of The Disease.

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.

There Is No Accident So Unfortunate But Wise Men Will Make Some Advantage Of It, Nor Any So Entirely Fortunate But Fools May Turn It To Their Own Prejudice.

There Are Good Marriages, But There Are No Delightful Ones.

Though Most Of The Friendships Of The World Ill Deserve The Name Of Friendships; Yet A Man May Make Use Of Them On Occasion, As Of A Traffic Whose Returns Are Uncertain, And In Which 'tis Usual To Be Cheated.

Though Men Are Apt To Flatter And Exalt Themselves With Their Great Achievements, Yet These Are, In Truth, Very Often Owing Not So Much To Design As Chance.

Though Confidence Is Very Fine, And Makes The Future Sunny; I Want No Confidence For Mine, I'd Rather Have The Money

We Cannot Possibly Imagine The Variety Of Contradictions In Every Heart.

What Makes Us So Bitter Against People Who Outwit Us Is That They Think Themselves Cleverer Than We Are.

Cunning And Treachery Are The Offspring Of Incapacity.

Our Probity Is Not Less At The Mercy Of Fortune Than Our Property.

The Good Or The Bad Fortune Of Men Depends Not Less Upon Their Own Dispositions Than Upon Fortune.

No Accidents Are So Unlucky [bad] But That The Wise May Draw Some Advantage [good] From Them.

The Judgments Our Enemies Make About Us Come Nearer To The Truth Than Those We Make About Ourselves.

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

There Are No Accidents So Unlucky But The Prudent May Draw Some Advantage From Them.

The Constancy Of The Wise Is Only The Talent Of Concealing The Agitation Of Their Hearts.

The Smallest Fault Of Women Who Give Themselves Up To Love Is To Love.

Whatever Ignominy Or Disgrace We Have Incurred, It Is Almost Always In Our Power To Reestablish Our Reputation.

What Seems To Be Generosity Is Often No More Than Disguised Ambition, Which Overlooks A Small Interest In Order To Secure A Great One.

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

Prudence And Love Are Inconsistent; In Proportion As The Last Increases, The Other Decreases.

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

Avarice Is More Directly Opposed To Thrift Than Generosity Is.

Silence Is The Best Security To The Man Who Distrusts Himself.

L'absence Diminue Les Mediocres Passions, Et Augmente Les Grandes,comme Le Vent Eteint Les Bougies, Et Allume Le Feu. Absence Diminishes Commonplace Passions, And Increases Great Ones, As Wind Extinguishes Candles And Kindles Fire.

Philosophy Triumphs Easily Over Past Evils And Future Evils, But Present Evils Triumph Over It.

We Are So Accustomed To Disguise Ourselves To Others That In The End We Become Disguised To Ourselves.

We Only Acknowledge Small Faults In Order To Make It Appear That We Are Free From Great Ones.

The Surest Proof Of Being Endowed With Noble Qualities Is To Be Free From Envy.

Generosity Is The Vanity Of Giving.

Simplicity Is A Delicate Imposition.

Tis More Dishonourable To Distrust A Friend Than To Be Deceived By Him.

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

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

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

That Which Makes The Vanity Of Others Unbearable To Us Is That Which Wounds Our Own.

There Are Two Things Which Man Cannot Look At Directly Without Flinching: The Sun And Death.

Nothing Prevents One From Appearing Natural As The Desire To Appear Natural.

The Accent Of A Man's Native Country Remains In His Mind And His Heart, As It Does In His Speech.

The Greatest Part Of Intimate Confidences Proceed From A Desire Either To Be Pitied Or Admired.

Nothing Is Rarer Than Real Goodness.

Penetration Has An Air Of Divination; It Pleases Our Vanity More Than Any Other Quality Of The Mind.

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.

Passion Makes Idiots Of The Cleverest Men, And Makes The Biggest Idiots Clever.

Pride Indemnifies Itself And Loses Nothing Even When It Casts Away Vanity.

Whatever Good Things People Say Of Us, They Tell Us Nothing New.

We Often Shed Tears That Deceive Ourselves After Deceiving Others.

Deceiving Others

Man Only Blames Himself In Order That He May Be Praised.

It Is As Easy To Deceive One's Self Without Perceiving It, As It Is Difficult To Deceive Others Without Their Finding Out.

A Man Often Imagines That He Acts, When He Is Acted Upon.

Jealousy Is Not So Much The Love Of Another As The Love Of Ourselves.

We Are Never So Happy, Nor So Unhappy, As We Suppose Ourselves To Be.

Some Disguised Deceits Counterfeit Truth So Perfectly That Not To Be Taken In By Them Would Be An Error Of Judgment.

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.

The Less You Trust Others, The Less You Will Be Deceived.

Folly Pursues Us At All Periods Of Our Lives. If Someone Seems Wise It Is Only Because His Follies Are Proportionate To His Age And Fortune.

It Takes More Strength Of Character To Withstand Good Fortune Than Bad.

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

Our Repentances Are Generally Not So Much A Concern And Remorse For The Harm We Have Done, As A Fear Of The Harm We May Have Brought Upon Ourselves.

Hope And Fear Are Inseparable. There Is No Hope Without Fear, Nor Any Fear Without Hope.

Sincerity Is An Openness Of Heart; We Find It In Very Few People; What We Usually See Is Only An Artful Dissimulation To Win The Confidence Of Others.

It Is Often Merely For An Excuse That We Say Things Are Impossible.

Positive Thinking

Perfect Valor Is To Do, Without A Witness, All That We Could Do Before The Whole World.

We Give Nothing So Freely As Advice.

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

Some Counterfeits Reproduce So Very Well The Truth That It Would Be A Flaw Of Judgment Not To Be Deceived By Them.

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

Love, Like Fire, Cannot Subsist Without Constant Impulse; It Ceases To Live From The Moment It Ceases To Hope Or To Fear.

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

True Love Is Like Ghosts, Which Everyone Talks About And Few Have Seen.

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

Only Strong Natures Can Really Be Sweet Ones; Those That Seem Sweet Are In General Only Weak, And May Easily Turn Sour.

Women In Love Sooner Forgive Great Indiscretions Than Small Infidelities.

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

However Wicked Men May Be, They Do Not Dare Openly To Appear The Enemies Of Virtue, And When They Desire To Persecute Her They Either Pretend To Believe Her False Or Attribute Crimes To Her.

We Are Inconsolable At Being Deceived By Our Enemies And Being Betrayed By Our Friends, Yet We Are Often Content In Be Being Treated Like That By Our Own Selves.

We Should Often Feel Ashamed Of Our Best Actions If The World Could See All The Motives Which Produced Them.

Nature Creates Ability; Luck Provides It With Opportunity.

Thinkers Think And Doers Do. But Until The Thinkers Do And The Doers Think, Progress Will Be Just Another Word In The Already Overburdened Vocabulary By Sense.

It Is Praiseworthy Even To Attempt A Great Action.

Virtues Lose Themselves In Self-interest, As Rivers In The Sea.

Virtue Is The Habit Of Acting According To Wisdom. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, "felicity", Leibniz: Political Writings Virtue Is Harder To Be Got Than Knowledge Of The World; And, If Lost In A Young Man, Is Seldom Recovered. John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education However Wicked Men May Be, They Do Not Dare Openly To Appear The Enemies Of Virtue, And When They Desire To Persecute Her They Either Pretend To Believe Her False Or Attribute Crimes To Her.

Few Men Know All The Ill They Do.

The Older A Fool Is, The Worse He Is.

He That Fancies Such A Sufficiency In Himself That He Can Live Without All The World Is Greatly Mistaken; But He That Imagines Himself So Necessary That Other People Cannot Live Without Him Is A Great Deal More Mistaken.

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

There Are Some Faults Which, When Well Managed, Make A Greater Figure Than Virtue Itself.

We Are Never So Generous As When Giving Advice.

Politeness Of Mind Consists In Thinking Chaste And Refined Thoughts.

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.

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

The Passions Are The Only Orators That Always Persuade: They Are, As It Were, A Natural Art, The Rules Of Which Are Infallible; And The Simplest Man With Passion Is More Persuasive Than The Most Eloquent Without It.

Flattery Is A Counterfeit Money Which, But For Vanity, Would Have No Circulation.

Old People Are Fond Of Giving Good Advice; It Consoles Them For No Longer Being Capable Of Setting A Bad Example.

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.

That Man, We May Be Sure, Is A Person Of True Worth, Whom Those Who Envy Him Most Are Yet Forced To Praise.

What Makes Lovers Never Tire Of One Another Is That They Talk Always About Themselves.

Envy Is More Incapable Of Reconciliation Than Hatred Is.

The Reason Why Lovers And Their Mistresses Never Tire Of Being Together Is That They Are Always Talking Of Themselves. [fr., Ce Qui Fait Que Amants Et Les Maitresses Ne S'ennuient Point D'etre Ensemble; C'est Qu'ils Parlent Toujours D'eux Memes.]

The Sicknesses Of The Soul Have Their Ups And Downs Like Those Of The Body; What We Take To Be A Cure Is Most Often Merely A Respite Or Change Of Disease.

The Qualities We Have, Make Us So Ridiculous As Those Which We Affect.

True Eloquence Consists In Saying All That Should Be Said, And That Only.

The First Lover Is Kept A Long While, When No Offer Is Made Of A Second.

Timidity Is A Fault For Which It Is Dangerous To Reprove Persons Whom We Wish To Correct Of It.

We Are Sometimes As Different From Ourselves As We Are From Others.

Self Improvement

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

It Is Pointless For A Woman To Be Young Unless Pretty, Or To Be Pretty Unless Young.

The Name And Pretense Of Virtue Is As Serviceable To Self-interest As Are Real Vices.

Fortune Mends More Faults In Us Than Ever Reason Would Be Able To Do.

Self-love Is The Love Of A Man's Own Self, And Of Everything Else For His Own Sake. It Makes People Idolaters To Themselves, And Tyrants To All The World Besides.

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.

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

Our Minds Are Lazier Than Our Bodies.

Love Is One And The Same In The Original; But There Are A Thousand Different Copies Of It.

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

Eloquence: Saying The Proper Thing And Stopping.

No Matter How Much Care We Put Into Hiding Our Passions Under The Appearances Of Devotion And Honor, They Can Always Be Seen To Peer Out Through These Covers.

Avarice Often Produces Opposite Results: There Are An Infinite Number Of Persons Who Sacrifice Their Property To Doubtful And Distant Expectations; Others Mistake Great Future Advantages For Small Present Interests.

Misers Mistake Gold For Their Good; Whereas 'tis Only A Means Of Attaining It.

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.

Plenty Of People Want To Be Pious, But No One Yearns To Be Humble.

The Art Of Using Moderate Abilities To Advantage Often Brings Greater Results Than Actual Brilliance

Renewed Friendships Require More Care Than Those That Have Never Been Broken.

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.

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.

There Are Several Remedies Which Will Cure Love, But There Are No Infallible Ones.

The Rust Of Business Is Sometimes Polished Off In A Camp; But Never In A Court.

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.

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.

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

Youth Is A Perpetual Intoxication; It Is A Fever Of The Mind.

Many Young Persons Believe Themselves Natural When They Are Only Impolite And Coarse.

Some Reproaches Praise; Some Praises Reproach.

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

He Is Safe Who Admits No One To His Confidence.

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

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

If We Resist Our Passions, It Is More Due To Their Weakness Than Our Strength.

Jealousy Is In A Manner Just And Reasonable, As It Tends To Preserve A Good Which Belongs, Or Which We Believe Belongs To Us, On The Other Hand Envy Is A Fury Which Cannot Endure The Happiness Of Others.

We Are Nearer Loving Those Who Hate Us Than Those Who Love Us More Than We Wish.

Taste May Change, But Inclination Never.

All Women Are Flirts, But Some Are Restrained By Shyness, And Others By Sense.

Ridicule Dishonours More Than Dishonour.

A Good Woman Is A Hidden Treasure; Who Discovers Her Will Do Well Not To Boast About It.

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