Background Image

...

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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

In All Professions Each

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

...

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

We Give Nothing So Freely As Advice.

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

The One Thing People Are The Most Liberal With, Is Their Advice.

A Fool Has Not Material Enough To Be Good. [fr., Un Sot N'a Pas Assez D'etoffe Pour Etre Bon.]

A Man Seldom Finds People Unthankful, As Long As He Remains In A Condition Of Benefiting Them Further.

We Often Forgive Those Who Bore Us, But We Cannot Forgive Those Whom We Bore.

Pity Is Often A Reflection Of Our Own Evils In The Ills Of Others. It Is A Delicate Foresight Of The Troubles Into Which We May Fall.

It Is Not Enough To Have Great Qualities; We Should Also Have The Management Of Them.

Self Discipline

There Are A Great Many Men Valued In Society Who Have Nothing To Recommend Them But Serviceable Vices.

We Often Are Consoled By Our Want Of Reason For Misfortunes That Reason Could Not Have Comforted.

The Intention Of Cheating No One Lays Us Open To Being Cheated Ourselves.

Strength And Weakness Of Mind Are Misnomers; They Are Really Nothing But The Good Or Bad Health Of Our Bodily Organs.

If We Took As Much Pains To Be What We Ought, As We Do To Deceive Others By Disguising What We Are; We Might Appear As We Are, Without Being At The Trouble Of Any Disguise.

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

The More One Loves A Mistress, The More One Is Ready To Hate Her.

There Are Few People More Convinced Of Their Own Genius Than Those Who Complain Of How Stupid They Are.

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.

The Reason Why Lovers Are Never Bored Together Is That They Are Always Talking Of Themselves.

It's The Height Of Folly To Want To Be The Only Wise One.

Praise Is Flattery, Artful, Hidden, Delicate, Which Gratifies Differently Him Who Praises And Him Who Is Praised. The One Takes It As The Reward Of Merit, The Other Bestows It To Show His Impartiality And Knowledge.

Everyone Agrees That A Secret Should Be Kept Intact, But Everyone Does Not Agree As To The Nature And Importance Of Secrecy. Too Often We Consult Ourselves As To What We Should Say, What We Should Leave Unsaid. There Are Few Permanent Secrets, And The Scruple Against Revealing Them Will Not Last Forever.

He Who Lives Without Folly Isn't So Wise As He Thinks.

Not All Those Who Know Their Minds Know Their Hearts As Well.

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

When Our Hatred Is Violent, It Sinks Us Even Beneath Those We Hate.

In Every Walk Of Life Each Man Puts On A Personality And Outward Appearance So As To Look What He Wants To Be Thought; In Fact You Might Say That Society Is Entirely Made Up Of Assumed Personalities.

What Makes The Pain We Feel From Shame And Jealousy So Cutting Is That Vanity Can Give Us No Assistance In Bearing Them.

The Truest Mark Of Being Born With Great Qualities Is To Be Born Without Envy.

The World More Often Rewards The Appearances Of Merit Than Merit Itself.

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

Some People Are So Extremely Whiffling And Inconsiderable That They Are As Far From Any Real Faults As From Substantial Virtues.

Cunning And Treachery Are The Offspring Of Incapacity.

Repentance Is Not So Much Remorse For What We Have Done As The Fear Of The Consequences.

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

The Height Of Ability Consists In A Thorough Knowledge Of The Real Value Of Things, And Of The Genius Of The Age In Which We Live.

There Are Various Sorts Of Curiosity; One Is From Interest, Which Makes Us Desire To Know That Which May Be Useful To Us; And The Other, From Pride Which Comes From The Wish To Know What Others Are Ignorant Of.

Men Never Desire Anything Very Eagerly Which They Desire Only By The Dictates Of Reason.

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.

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

We Have Not Strength Enough To Follow Our Reason So Far As It Would Carry Us.

Absence Diminishes Mediocre Passions And Increases Great Ones, As The Wind Extinguishes Candles And Fans Fires.

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

The More We Love, The Nearer We Are To Hate.

When Fortune Surprises Us By Giving Us Some Great Office Without Having Gradually Led Us To Expect It, Or Without Having Raised Our Hopes, It Is Well Nigh Impossible To Occupy It Well, And To Appear Worthy To Fill It.

High Fortune Makes Both Our Virtues And Vices Stand Out As Objects That Are Brought Clearly To View By The Light.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

Our Actions Are Like The Terminations Of Verses, Which We Rhyme As We Please.

All Women Seem By Nature To Be Coquettes.

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

We Seldom Praise Anyone In Good Earnest, Except Such As Admire Us.

Preserving The Serious Health Condition Is Usually Painful.

Moderation Is The Feebleness And Sloth Of The Soul, Whereas Ambition Is The Warmth And Activity Of It.

Listening Well And Answering Well Is One Of The Greatest Perfections That Can Be Obtained In Conversation.

A Weak Mind Is The Only Defect Out Of Our Power To Mend.

We Often Pay Our Debts Not Because It Is Only Fair That We Should, But To Make Future Loans Easier.

Intrepidity Is An Extraordinary Strength Of Soul, Which Raises It Above The Troubles, Disorders And Emotions Which The Sight Of Great Perils Can Arouse In It; By This Strength Heroes Maintain A Calm Aspect And Preserve Their Reason And Liberty In The Most Surprising And Terrible Accidents.

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

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.

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

A Well-trained Mind Has Less Difficulty In Submitting To Than In Guiding An Ill-trained Mind.

There Are Reproaches Which Praise, And Praises Which Defame.

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.

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

The Greatest Of All Gifts Is The Power To Estimate Things At Their True Worth

Madmen And Fools See Everything Through The Medium Of Humor.

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.

It Is Sometimes Necessary To Play The Fool To Avoid Being Deceived By Cunning Men.

The Greater Part Of Mankind Judge Of Men Only By Their Fashionableness Or Their Fortune.

A Man Often Believes Himself Leader When He Is Led; As His Mind Endeavors To Reach One Goal, His Heart Insensibly Drags Him Towards Another.

In Love The Deceit Generally Outstrips The Distrust.

The Desire Of Appearing Clever Often Prevents Our Becoming So.

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

There Is Nothing Men Are So Generous Of As Advice.

There Are Some Bad Qualities Which Make Great Talents.

Few Things Are Impossible In Themselves: Application To Make Them Succeed Fails Us More Often Than The Means.

It Is The Prerogative Of Great Men Only To Have Great Defects.

There Are Few Women Whose Charm Survives Their Beauty.

Old Age Is A Tyrant, Who Forbids, Under Pain Of Death, The Pleasures Of Youth.

When Love Becomes Labored We Welcome An Act Of Infidelity Towards Ourselves To Free Us From Fidelity.

The Intention Of Never Deceiving Often Exposes Us To Deception.

Virtue Would Not Make Such Advances If There Were Not A Little Vanity To Keep It Company.

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

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

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.

Smallness Of Mind Is The Cause Of Stubbornness, And We Do Not Credit Readily What Is Beyond Our View.

To Eat Is A Necessity, But To Eat Intelligently Is An Art.

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

Everyone Complains Of His Memory, And Nobody Complains Of His Judgment.

The Grace Of Novelty And The Length Of Habit, Though So Very Opposite To One Another, Yet Agree In This, That They Both Alike Keepus From Discovering The Faults Of Our Friends.

The Passions Often Engender Their Contraries.

There Are Heroes In Evil As Well As In Good.

Being A Blockhead Is Sometimes The Best Security Against Being Cheated By A Man Of Wit.

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.

Jealousy Is The Greatest Of All Evils, And The One That Arouses The Least Pity In The Person Who Causes It.

To Praise Princes For Virtues They Do Not Possess Is To Insult Them Without Fear Of Consequences.

The Shame That Arises From Praise Which We Do Not Deserve Often Makes Us Do Things We Should Otherwise Never Have Attempted.

It Requires No Small Degree Of Ability To Know When To Conceal One's Ability.

Some Men Are Like Ballads, That Are In Everyone's Mouth A Little While.

Women In Love Sooner Forgive Great Indiscretions Than Small Infidelities.

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

Were We Faultless, We Would Not Derive Such Satisfaction From Remarking The Faults Of Others.

We Easily Forget Our Faults When No One Knows Them But Ourselves.

The Gallantry Of The Mind Consists In Agreeable Flattery.

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.

Jealousy Is Bred In Doubts. When Those Doubts Change Into Certainties, Then The Passion Either Ceases Or Turns Absolute Madness.

Moderation In People Who Are Contented Comes From That Calm That Good Fortune Lends To Their Spirit.

There Are Very Few People Who Are Not Ashamed Of Having Been In Love When They No Longer Love Each Other.

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.

Tastes In Young People Are Changed By Natural Impetuosity, And In The Aged Are Preserved By Habit.

We Are Almost Always Wearied In The Company Of Persons With Whom We Are Not Permitted To Be Weary.

Passion Often Renders The Most Clever Man A Fool, And Sometimes Renders The Most Foolish Man Clever.

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.

Though Nature Be Ever So Generous, Yet Can She Not Make A Hero Alone. Fortune Must Contribute Her Part Too; And Till Both Concur, The Work Cannot Be Perfected.

Without Humility, We Keep All Our Defects; And They Are Only Crusted Over By Pride, Which Conceals Them From Others, And Often From Ourselves.

Gracefulness Is To The Body What Understanding Is To The Mind.

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.

What Often Prevents Our Abandoning Ourselves To A Single Vice Is, Our Having More Than One.

Reason Alone Is Insufficient To Make Us Enthusiastic In Any Matter.

Service Culture

We Think Very Few People Sensible, Except Those Who Are Of Our Opinion.

Self-interest Speaks All Manner Of Tongues And Plays All Manner Of Parts, Even That Of Disinterestedness.

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.

A Wise Man Should Order His Interests, And Set Them All In Their Proper Places. This Order Is Often Troubled By Greed, Which Putsus Upon Pursuing So Many Things At Once That, In Eagerness For Matters Of Less Consideration, We Grasp At Trifles, And Let Go Things Of Greater Value.

Men Have Written In The Most Convincing Manner To Prove That Death Is No Evil, And This Opinion Has Been Confirmed On A Thousand Celebrated Occasions By The Weakest Of Men As Well As By Heroes. Even So I Doubt Whether Any Sensible Person Has Ever Believed It, And The Trouble Men Take To Convince Others As Well As Themselves That They Do Shows Clearly That It Is No Easy Undertaking.

When Our Vices Desert Us, We Flatter Ourselves That We Are Deserting Our Vices.

Some Weak People Are So Sensible Of Their Weakness As To Be Able To Make A Good Use Of It.

History Never Embraces More Than A Small Part Of Reality

To Establish Ourselves In The World, We Have To Do All We Can To Appear Established. To Succeed In The World, We Do Everything We Can To Appear Successful.

When The Soul Is Ruffled By The Remains Of One Passion, It Is More Disposed To Entertain A New One Than When It Is Entirely Curedand At Rest From All.

People Are Often Vain Of Their Passions, Even Of The Worst, But Envy Is A Passion So Timid And Shame-faced That No One Ever Dare Avow Her.

No Matter How Brilliant An Action, It Should Not Be Considered Great Unless It Was The Result Of A Great Motive.

There Is Scarcely Any Man Sufficiently Clever To Appreciate All The Evil He Does.

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

Politeness Of Mind Consists In Thinking Chaste And Refined Thoughts.

A Man Is Sometimes Better Off Deceived About The One He Loves, Than Undeceived.

Men's Happiness And Misery Depends Altogether As Much Upon Their Own Humor As It Does Upon Fortune.

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

The Accent Of One's Birthplace Remains In The Mind And In The Heart As In One's Speech.

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

We Pardon To The Extent That We Love.

The Love Of New Acquaintance Comes Not So Much From Being Weary Of What We Had Before, Or From Any Satisfaction There Is In Change, As From The Distaste We Feel In Being Too Little Admired By Those That Know Us Too Well, And The Hope Of Being More Admired By Those That Know Us Less.

We Forgive Just So Long As We Love.

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

The Better Part Of One's Life Consists Of His Friendships. Abraham Lincoln, Letter To Joseph Gillespie, July 13, 1849 Friendship Is Insipid To Those Who Have Experienced Love.

There Is Merit Without Rank, But There Is No Rank Without Some Merit.

Perfect Courage And Utter Cowardice Are Two Extremes Which Rarely Occur.

It Is With Certain Good Qualities As With The Senses; Those Who Have Them Not Can Neither Appreciate Nor Comprehend Them In Others.

Few Know How To Be Old.

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

A Person Well Satisfied With Themselves Is Seldom Satisfied With Others, And Others, Rarely Are With Them.

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

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

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

Our Minds Are Lazier Than Our Bodies.

Sometimes A Fool Has Talent, But Never Judgment.

Our Minds Are As Much Given To Laziness As Our Bodies.

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

The Great Interests Of Man: Air And Light, The Joy Of Having A Body, The Voluptuousness Of Looking.

A Respectable Man May Love Madly, But Not Foolishly.

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

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.

Happy People Rarely Correct Their Faults; They Consider Themselves Vindicated, Since Fortune Endorses Their Evil Ways.

People Always Complain About Their Memories, Never About Their Minds.

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

If There Be A Love Pure And Free From The Admixture Of Our Other Passions, It Is That Which Lies Hidden In The Bottom Of Our Heart, And Which We Know Not Ourselves.

It Is Easier For A Man To Be Thought Fit For An Employment That He Has Not, Than For One He Stands Already Possessed Of, And Is Exercising.

It Is Easy To Be Wise On Behalf Of Others Than To Be So For Ourselves.

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

Men Are Not Only Prone To Forget Benefits; They Even Hate Those Who Have Obliged Them, And Cease To Hate Those Who Have Injured Them. The Necessity Of Revenging An Injury, Or Of Recompensing A Benefit Seems A Slavery To Which They Are Unwilling To Submit.

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

Gratitude Is Merely The Secret Hope Of Further Favors.

They That Apply Themselves To Trifling Matters Commonly Become Incapable Of Great Ones.

A Man Convinced Of His Own Merit Will Accept Misfortune As An Honor, For Thus Can He Persuade Others, As Well As Himself, That He Is A Worthy Target For The Arrows Of Fate.

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.

Imagination Does Not Enable Us To Invent As Many Different Contradictions As There Are By Nature In Every Heart.

We Are Almost Always Bored By Just Those Whom We Must Not Find Boring.

Perfect Behavior Is Born Of Complete Indifference.

People Would Not Long Remain In Social Life If They Were Not The Dupes Of Each Other.

There Is A Kind Of Love, The Excess Of Which Forbids Jealousy.

We Exaggerate The Glory Of Some Men In Order To Detract From That Of Others.

We Would Rather Speak Ill Of Ourselves Than Not Talk About Ourselves At All.

There Are Persons Whose Only Merit Consists In Saying And Doing Stupid Things At The Right Time, And Who Ruin All If They Change Their Manners.

Passion Often Makes Fools Of The Wisest Men And Gives The Silliest Wisdom.

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

It Is Only Persons Of Firmness That Can Have Real Gentleness. Those Who Appear Gentle Are, In General, Only A Weak Character, Which Easily Changes Into Asperity.

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

Keeping Secrets

Whatever Pretended Causes We May Blame Our Afflictions Upon, It Is Often Nothing But Self-interest And Vanity That Produce Them.

None Deserve Praise For Being Good Who Have Not The Spirit To Be Bad: Goodness, For The Most Part, Is Nothing But Indolence Or Weakness Of Will.

Whatever Distrust We May Have Of The Sincerity Of Those Who Converse With Us, We Always Believe They Will Tell Us More Truth Than They Do To Others.

We Should Manage Our Fortune As We Do Our Health - Enjoy It When Good, Be Patient When It Is Bad, And Never Apply Violent Remedies Except In An Extreme Necessity

What Makes Vanity So Insufferable To Us, Is That It Hurts Our Own.

If One Judges Love By The Majority Of Its Effects, It Is More Like Hatred Than Like Friendship.

The Extreme Pleasure We Take In Speaking Of Ourselves Should Make Us Apprehensive That It Gives Hardly Any To Those Who Listen To Us.

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

Moderation Resembles Temperance. We Are Not So Unwilling To Eat More, As Afraid Of Doing Ourselves Harm By It.

Those Only Are Despicable Who Fear To Be Despised.

The Blindness Of Men Is The Most Dangerous Effect Of Their Pride; It Seems To Nourish And Augment It; It Deprives Them Of Knowledge Of Remedies Which Can Solace Their Miseries And Can Cure Their Faults.

People's Personalities, Like Buildings, Have Various Facades, Some Pleasant To View, Some Not.

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

Very Few People Are Acquainted With Death. They Undergo It, Commonly, Not So Much Out Of Resolution As Custom And Insensitivity; And Most Men Die Because They Cannot Help It.

Trending Author

Category