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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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In The Presence Of

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

We Seldom Find Any Person Of Good Sense, Except Those Who Share Our Opinions.

Our Desires Always Disappoint Us; For Though We Meet With Something That Gives Us Satisfaction, Yet It Never Thoroughly Answers Our Expectation. [however Disappointment Can Always Be Removed If We Remember It Could Have Turned Out Worse.]

We Have No Patience With Other People's Vanity Because It Is Offensive To Our Own.

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.

Ideas Often Flash Across Our Minds More Complete Than We Could Make Them After Much Labor.

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.

Hatred Is Stronger Than Friendship.

All The Passions Make Us Commit Faults; Love Makes Us Commit The Most Ridiculous Ones.

The Only Thing Constant In Life Is Change

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

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.

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

In Love The Deceit Generally Outstrips The Distrust.

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

The Duration Of Our Passions Is No More Dependent On Ourselves Than The Duration Of Our Lives.

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

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

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

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

It Is Easier To Know Men In General, Than Men In Particular.

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

It Is Safer To Do Most Men Harm Than To Do Them Too Much Good.

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.

A Man Is Ridiculous Less Through The Characteristics He Has Than Through Those He Affects To Have.

Characteristics

Those Only Are Despicable Who Fear To Be Despised.

Most People Judge Men By Their Success Or Their Good Fortune.

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

Youth Changes Its Tastes By The Warmth Of Its Blood; Age Retains Its Tastes By Habit.

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

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

The Pleasure Of Love Is In The Loving; And There Is More Joy In The Passion One Feels Than In That Which One Inspires.

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

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

Honest People Will Respect Us For Our Merit: The Public, For Our Luck.

True Bravery Means Doing Alone That Which One Could Do If All The World Were By.

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

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

Great Men's Honor Ought Always To Be Measured By The Methods They Made Use Of In Attaining It.

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.

When A Man Is In Love, He Doubts, Very Often, What He Most Firmly Believes.

Few Things Are Needful To Make The Wise Man Happy, But Nothing Satisfies The Fool; - And This Is The Reason Why So Many Of Mankind Are Miserable.

We Confess To Little Faults Only To Persuade Ourselves We Have No Great Ones.

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.

In Misfortune We Often Mistake Dejection For Constancy; We Bear It Without Daring To Look On It; Like Cowards, Who Suffer Themselves To Be Murdered Without Resistance.

Few Things Are Impracticable In Themselves; And It Is For Want Of Application, Rather Than Of Means, That Men Fail To Succeed.

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

If You Cannot Find Peace In Yourself, It Is Useless To Look For It Elsewhere.

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

In The Human Heart One Generation Of Passions Follows Another; From The Ashes Of One Springs The Spark Of The Next.

We Label Judges With Having The Meanest Motives, And Yet We Desire That Our Reputation And Fame Should Depend Upon The Judgment Of Men, Who Are All, Either From Their Jealousy Or Preoccupation Or Want Of Intelligence, Opposed To Us - And Yet Despite Their Bias, Just For The Sake Of Making These Men Decide In Our Favor, We Peril In So Many Ways Both Our Peace And Our Life.

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

Truth Is The Foundation And The Reason Of The Perfection Of Beauty, For Of Whatever Stature A Thing May Be, It Cannot Be Beautiful-and Perfect, Unless It Be Truly What It Should Be, And Possess Truly All That It Should Have.

Gratitude Is A Useless Word. You Will Find It In A Dictionary But Not In Life.

Commonplace Minds Usually Condemn What Is Beyond The Reach Of Their Understanding.

Indolence, Languid As It Is, Often Masters Both Passions And Virtues.

Men Frequently Do Good Only To Give Themselves Opportunity Of Doing Ill With Impunity.

Envy Is More Incapable Of Reconciliation Than Hatred Is.

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

Organize One's Values In The Order Of Their Worth

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

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.

The Only Thing That Should Astonish Us Is That Anything Can Yet Astonish Us.

Women Can More Easily Conquer Their Passion Than Their Coquetterie.

We Are Never So Ridiculous Through What We Are As Through What We Pretend To Be.

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

We Are Never So Easily Deceived As When We Imagine We Are Deceiving Others.

Deceiving Others

He Is Not To Pass For A Man Of Reason Who Stumbles Upon Reason By Chance But He Who Knows It And Can Judge It And Has A True Taste For It.

It Is A Mighty Error To Suppose That None But Violent And Strong Passions, Such As Love And Ambition, Are Able To Vanquish The Rest. Even Idleness, As Feeble And Languishing As It Is, Sometimes Reigns Over Them; It Usurps The Throne And Sits Paramount Over All The Designs And Actions Of Our Lives, And Imperceptibly Wastes And Destroys All Our Passions And All Our Virtues.

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.

We Often Act Treacherously More From Weakness Than From A Fixed Motive.

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

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

True Friendship Destroys Envy, And True Love Destroys Coquetterie.

A Gentleman May Love Like A Lunatic, But Not Like A Beast.

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

The Health Of The Soul Is Something We Can Be No More Sure Of Than That Of The Body; And Though A Man May Seem Far From The Passions, Yet He Is In As Much Danger Of Falling Into Them As One In A Perfect State Of Health Of Having A Fit Of Sickness.

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

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

Avarice Is More Directly Opposed To Thrift Than Generosity Is.

If A Man Doesn't Find Ease In Himself, 'tis In Vain To Seek It Elsewhere.

No Man Is Clever Enough To Know All The Evil He Does.

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

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

Flattery Is False Money, Which Would Not Be Current Were It Not For Our Vanity.

For Envy, Like Lightning, Generally Strikes At The Top Or Any Point Which Sticks Out From The Ordinary Level. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura Our Envy Always Outlives The Felicity Of Its Object.

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

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

Old Men Delight In Giving Good Advice As A Consolation For The Fact That They Can No Longer Set Bad Examples.

Gravity Is A Mysterious Carriage Of The Body Invented To Cover The Defects Of The Mind.

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

When The Philosophers Despised Riches, It Was Because They Had A Mind To Vindicate Their Own Merit, And Take Revenge Upon The Injustice Of Fortune By Vilifying Those Enjoyments Which She Had Not Given Them.

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

Absence Abates A Moderate Passion And Intensifies A Great One - As The Wind Blows Out A Candle But Fans Fire Into Flame.

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.

Perseverance Is Neither Praiseworthy Nor Blameworthy; For It Seems To Be Only The Enduring Of Certain Inclinations And Opinions Which Men Neither Give Themselves Nor Take Away From Themselves.

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

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

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

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

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

Mediocre Minds Usually Dismiss Anything Which Reaches Beyond Their Own Understanding.

Love, All Agreeable As It Is, Charms More By The Fashion In Which It Displays Itself, Than By Its Own True Merit.

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

One Is Never Fortunate Or As Unfortunate As One Imagines.

To Safeguard One's Health At The Cost Of Too Strict A Diet Is A Tiresome Illness, Indeed.

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

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

No Persons Are More Frequently Wrong, Than Those Who Will Not Admit They Are Wrong.

Madmen And Fools See Everything Through The Medium Of Humor.

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

Few Are Sufficiently Wise To Prefer Censure Which Is Useful To Praise Which Is Treacherous.

We Speak Little If Not Egged On By Vanity.

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

Great Men Should Not Have Great Faults.

A Man's Wits Are Better Employed In Bearing Up Under The Misfortunes That Lie Upon Him At Present Than In Foreseeing Those That May Come Upon Him Hereafter.

Our Hopes, Often Though They Deceive Us, Lead Us Pleasantly Along The Path Of Life.

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

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.

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.

There Are Few Virtuous Women Who Are Not Bored With Their Trade.

Some People Displease With Merit, And Others' Very Faults And Defects Are Pleasing.

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

What We Take For Virtue Is Often But An Assemblage Of Various Ambitions And Activities That Chance, Or Our Own Astuteness, Have Arranged In A Certain Manner; And It Is Not Always Out Of Courage Or Purity That Men Are Brave, And Women Chaste.

Humility Is The Sure Evidence Of Christian Virtues. Without It, We Retain All Our Faults Still, And They Are Only Covered Over With Pride, Which Hides Them From Other Men's Observation, And Sometimes From Our Own Too.

A Certain Harmony Should Be Kept Between Actions And Ideas If We Want To Fully Develop The Effects They Can Produce.

Constancy In Love Is Of Two Sorts: One Is The Effect Of New Excellencies That Are Always Presenting Themselves Afresh, And Attractour Affections Continually; The Other Is Only From A Point Of Honor, And A Taking Of Pride Not To Change.

We Would Frequently Be Ashamed Of Our Good Deeds If People Saw All Of The Motives That Produced Them.

To Be A Great Man It Is Necessary To Turn To Account All Opportunities.

The Generality Of Virtuous Women Are Like Hidden Treasures, They Are Safe Only Because Nobody Has Sought After Them.

Politeness Is A Desire To Be Treated Politely, And To Be Esteemed Polite Oneself.

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.

To Think To Be Wise Alone Is A Very Great Folly.

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

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

Reconciliation With Our Enemies Is Simply A Desire To Better Our Condition, A Weariness Of War, Or The Fear Of Some Unlucky Thing From Occurring.

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

Men May Boast Of Their Great Actions; But They Are More Often The Effects Of Chance Than Of Design.

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.

The Clemency Of Princes Is Often But Policy To Win The Affections Of The People.

We Love Much Better Those Who Endeavor To Imitate Us, Than Those Who Strive To Equal Us. For Imitation Is A Sign Of Esteem, But Competition Of Envy.

The Person Giving The Advice Returns The Confidence Placed In Him With A Disinterested Eagerness... And He Is Usually Guided Only By His Own Interest Or Reputation.

Tis A Sort Of Coquetry To Boast That We Never Coquet.

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

Our Concern For The Loss Of Our Friends Is Not Always From A Sense Of Their Worth, But Rather Of Our Own Need Of Them And That We Have Lost Some Who Had A Good Opinion Of Us.

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

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

A Fool Has Not Stuff Enough To Make A Good Man.

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

We Forget Our Faults Easily When They Are Known To Ourselves Alone.

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

There Are People Who Would Never Have Been In Love, Had They Never Heard Love Spoken Of.

Some Beautiful Things Are More Dazzling When They Are Still Imperfect Than When They Have Been Too Perfectly Crafted.

It Is A Species Of Coquetry To Make A Parade Of Never Practising It.

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

We May Say Of Agreeableness, As Distinct From Beauty, That It Consists In A Symmetry Of Which We Know Not The Rules, And A Secret Conformity Of The Features To Each Other, As Also To The Air And Complexion Of The Person.

Men Would Not Live In Society Long If They Were Not Each Others Dupes.

Narrowness Of Mind Is Often The Cause Of Obstinacy; We Do Not Easily Believe Beyond What We See.

The Old Begin To Complain Of The Conduct Of The Young When They Themselves Are No Longer Able To Set A Bad Example.

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

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

The Desire To Seem Clever Often Keeps Us From Being So.

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

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

The Evil That We Do Does Not Attract To Us So Much Persecution And Hatred As Our Good Qualities.

A Man's Worth Has Its Season, Like Fruit.

Humility Is The Worst Form Of Conceit.

Jealousy Contains More Of Self-love Than Of Love.

Moderation Cannot Have The Credit Of Combatiug And Subduing Ambition, They Are Never Found Together. Moderation Is The Languor And Indolence Of The Soul, As Ambition Is Its Activity And Ardor.

Sometimes We Meet A Fool With Wit, Never One With Discretion.

Avarice Misapprehends Itself Almost Always. There Is No Passion Which More Often Will Miss Its Aim, Nor Upon Which The Present Has So Much Influence To The Prejudice Of The Future.

People Would Never Fall In Love If They Hadn't Heard Love Talked About.

It Is More Often From Pride Than From Defective Understanding That People Oppose Established Opinions: They Find The Best Places Taken In The Good Party And Are Reluctant To Accept Inferior Ones.

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.

As We Grow Older We Grow Both More Foolish And Wiser At The Same Time.

Of All The Violent Passions, The One That Becomes A Woman Best Is Love.

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

What Renders Us So Changeable In Our Friendship Is, That It Is Difficult To Know The Qualities Of The Soul, But Easy To Know Those Of The Mind.

A Great Many Men's Gratitude Is Nothing But A Secret Desire To Hook In More Valuable Kindnesses Hereafter.

Esteem Never Makes Ingrates.

There Are Few Women Whose Charm Survives Their Beauty.

To Be A Great Man It Is Necessary To Know How To Profit By The Whole Of Our Good Fortune.

To Listen Closely And Reply Well Is The Highest Perfection We Are Able To Attain In The Art Of Conversation.

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

Before We Set Our Hearts Too Much Upon Anything, Let Us Examine How Happy They Are, Who Already Possess It.

As Great Minds Have The Faculty Of Saying A Great Deal In A Few Words, So Lesser Minds Have A Talent Of Talking Much, And Saying Nothing.

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

There Are Bad People Who Would Be Less Dangerous If They Were Quite Devoid Of Goodness.

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

The Contempt Of Riches In The Philosophers Was A Concealed Desire Of Revenging On Fortune The Injustice Done To Their Merit, By Despising The Good She Denied Them.

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

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

Women Do Not Know All Their Powers Of Flirtation.

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

Self-love Makes Our Friends Appear More Or Less Deserving In Proportion To The Delight We Take In Them, And The Measures By Whichwe Judge Of Their Worth Depend Upon The Manner Of Their Conversing With Us.

The Greatest Miracle Of Love Is The Cure Of Coquetry.

No Men Are Oftener Wrong Than Those That Can Least Bear To Be So.

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

Self Discipline

Pride Does Not Wish To Owe And Vanity Does Not Wish To Pay.

Our Minds Are Lazier Than Our Bodies.

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