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Jealousy Is In Some Measure Just And Reasonable, Since It Merely Aims At Keeping Something That Belongs To Us Or We Think Belongsto Us, Whereas Envy Is A Frenzy That Cannot Bear Anything That Belongs To Others.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Jealousy Is In Some

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Jealousy Is In Some Measure Just And Reasonable, Since It Merely Aims At Keeping Something That Belongs To Us Or We Think Belongsto Us, Whereas Envy Is A Frenzy That Cannot Bear Anything That Belongs To Others.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

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.

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

How Can We Expect Another To Keep Our Secret If We Have Been Unable To Keep It Ourselves?

Keeping Secrets

It Is A Great Act Of Cleverness To Be Able To Conceal One's Being Clever.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

When We Disclaim Praise, It Is Only Showing Our Desire To Be Praised A Second Time.

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

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

When The Heart Is Still Disturbed By The Relics Of A Passion It Is Proner To Take Up A New One Than When Wholly Cured.

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

Why Is It That Our Memory Is Good Enough To Retain The Least Triviality That Happens To Us, And Yet Not Good Enough To Recollect How Often We Have Told It To The Same Person?

Not Good Enough

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

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

He Who Lives Without Committing Any Folly Is Not So Wise As He Thinks. [fr., Qui Vit Sans Folie N'est Pas Si Sage Qu'il Croit.]

The Desire To Be Thought Clever Often Prevents A Man From Becoming So.

The Surest Way To Be Deceived Is To Consider Oneself Cleverer Than Others.

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

There Are Certain Defects Which, Well-mounted, Glitter Like Virtue Itself.

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

A Refusal Of Praise Is A Desire To Be Praised Twice.

Jealousy Is Not Love, But Self-love.

The Reason We Bitterly Hate Those Who Deceive Us Is Because They Think They Are Cleverer Than We Are.

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.

Envy Is Destroyed By True Friendship, As Coquetry By True Love.

Our Enemies Come Nearer The Truth In The Opinions They Form Of Us Than We Do In Our Opinion Of Ourselves.

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.

The Greatest Fault Of A Penetrating Wit Is To Go Beyond The Mark.

The Truest Comparison We Can Make Of Love Is To Liken It To A Fever; We Have No More Power Over The One Than The Other, Either As To Its Violence Or Duration.

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

Cunning And Treachery Proceed From Want Of Capacity.

On Why I Don't Trust Democracy Without Extremely Powerful Systems Of Accountability And Recall What Seems To Be Generosity Is Often Only Disguised Ambition - Which Despises Small Interests To Gain Great Ones.

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

Those Whom The World Has Delighted To Honor Have Oftener Been Influenced In Their Doings By Ambition And Vanity Than By Patriotism.

What Is Perfectly True Is Perfectly Witty.

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

None But Great Men Are Capable Of Having Great Flaws.

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

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.

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

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.

Those Great And Glorious Actions That Dazzle Our Eyes With Their Luster Are Represented By Statesmen As The Result Of Great Wisdomand Excellent Design; Whereas, In Truth, They Are Commonly The Effects Of The Humors And Passions.

It Often Happens That Things Come Into The Mind In A More Finished Form Than Could Have Been Achieved After Much Study.

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.

Death, Like The Sun, Cannot Be Looked At Steadily.

It Requires Greater Virtues To Support Good Fortune Than Bad.

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

However Much We May Distrust Men's Sincerity, We Always Believe They Speak To Us More Sincerely Than To Others.

Nothing Ought More To Humiliate Men Who Have Merited Great Praise Than The Care They Still Take To Boast Of Little Things.

That Which Occasions So Many Mistakes In The Computations Of Men, When They Expect Return For Favors, Is That The Giver's Pride And The Receiver's Cannot Agree Upon The Value Of The Kindness Done.

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.

It Is Almost Always A Fault Of One Who Loves Not To Realize When He Ceases To Be Loved.

We Love Everything On Our Own Account; We Even Follow Our Own Taste And Inclination When We Prefer Our Friends To Ourselves; And Yet It Is This Preference Alone That Constitutes True And Perfect Friendship.

We Own Up To Minor Failings, But Only So As To Convince Others That We Have No Major Ones.

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

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

It Is Oftener By The Estimation Of Our Own Feelings That We Exaggerate The Good Qualities Of Others Than By Their Merit, And When We Praise Them We Wish To Attract Their Praise.

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

Positive Thinking

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

Humility Is Often Merely Feigned Submissiveness Assumed In Order To Subject Others, An Artifice Of Pride Which Stoops To Conquer, And Although Pride Has A Thousand Ways Of Transforming Itself It Is Never So Well Disguised And Able To Take People In As When Masquerading As Humility.

We Should Gain More By Letting The World See What We Are Than By Trying To Seem What We Are Not.

There Are Some Disguised Falsehoods So Like Truths, That 'twould Be To Judge Ill Not To Be Deceived By Them.

To Achieve Greatness One Should Live As If They Will Never Die.

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.

We Should Desire Very Few Things Passionately If We Did But Perfectly Know The Nature Of The Things We Desire.

Silence Is The Safest Course For Any Man To Adopt Who Distrust Himself.

Coquetry Is The Essential Characteristic, And The Prevalent Humor Of Women; But They Do Not All Practice It, Because The Coquetry Of Some Is Restrained By Fear Or By Reason.

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

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.

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

It Is Difficult To Define Love; All We Can Say Is, That In The Soul It Is A Desire To Rule, In The Mind It Is A Sympathy, And In The Body It Is A Hidden And Delicate Wish To Possess What We Love-plus Many Mysteries.

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

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

There Are Some Persons Who Only Disgust With Their Abilities, There Are Persons Who Please Even With Their Faults.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

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

Jealousy Is In Some Measure Just And Reasonable, Since It Merely Aims At Keeping Something That Belongs To Us Or We Think Belongsto Us, Whereas Envy Is A Frenzy That Cannot Bear Anything That Belongs To Others.

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

If We Have Not Peace Within Ourselves, It Is In Vain To Seek It From Outward Sources.

The Man That Thinks He Loves His Mistress For Her Own Sake Is Mightily Mistaken.

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.

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

The Happiness And Unhappiness Of Men Depends As Much On Their Ethics As On Fortune.

Weakness Is The Only Fault That Is Incorrigible.

There Is A Kind Of Elevation Which Does Not Depend On Fortune; It Is A Certain Air Which Distinguishes Us, And Seems To Destine Us For Great Things; It Is A Price Which We Imperceptibly Set Upon Ourselves.

True Friendship Destroys Envy, And True Love Destroys Coquetterie.

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

There Is An Excess Both In Happiness And Misery Above Our Power Of Sensation.

The Dullness Of Certain People Is Sometimes A Sufficient Security Against The Attack Of An Artful Man.

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.

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

Weakness Is More Opposed To Virtue Than Is Vice.

We Do Not Lack Strength So Much As The Will To Use It; And Very Often Our Imagining That Things Are Impossible Is Nothing But An Excuse Of Our Own Contriving, To Reconcile Ourselves To Our Own Idleness.

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

Lovers, When They Are No Longer In Love, Find It Very Hard To Break Up.

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

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

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

The Heart Is Forever Making The Head Its Fool.

Clemency, Which We Make A Virtue Of, Proceeds Sometimes From Vanity, Sometimes From Indolence, Often From Fear, And Almost Always From A Mixture Of All Three.

We All Have Enough Strength To Endure The Misfortunes Of Others.

Misfortunes Of Others

Some Crimes Get Honor And Renown By Being Committed With More Pomp, By A Greater Number, And In A Higher Degree Of Wickedness Thanothers. Hence It Is That Public Robberies, Plunderings, And Sackings Have Been Looked Upon As Excellencies And Noble Achievements, And The Seizing Of Whole Countries, However Unjustly And Barbarously, Is Dignified With The Glorious Name Of Gaining Conquests.

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.]

We Pardon To The Extent That We Love.

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

Fortune Converts Everything To The Advantage Of Her Favorites.

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

The Generality Of Friends Puts Us Out Of Conceit With Friendship; Just As The Generality Of Religious People Puts Us Out Of Conceit With Religion.

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

The Fame Of Great Men Ought To Be Judged Always By Their Big, Fancy Names.

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 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 Wind Which Snuffs The Candle Fans The Fire.

Decency Is The Least Of All Laws, But Yet It Is The Law Which Is Most Strictly Observed.

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

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

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

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.

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

When We Seek Reconciliation With Our Enemies, It Is Commonly Out Of A Desire To Better Our Own Condition, A Being Harassed And Tired Out With A State Of War, And A Fear Of Some Ill Accident Which We Are Willing To Prevent.

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

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

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

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.

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

A Man's Happiness Or Unhappiness Depends As Much On His Temperament As On His Destiny.

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

There Is Real Love Just As There Are Real Ghosts; Every Person Speaks Of It, Few Persons Have Seen It.

There Are No Events So Disastrous That Adroit Men Do Not Draw Some Advantage From Them, Nor Any So Fortunate That The Imprudent Cannot Turn To Their Own Prejudice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love Of Fame, Fear Of Disgrace, Schemes For Advancement, Desire To Make Life Comfortable And Pleasant, And The Urge To Humiliate Others Are Often At The Root Of The Valour Men Hold In Such High Esteem.

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

The Passions Do Very Often Give Birth To Others Of A Nature Most Contrary To Their Own. Thus Avarice Sometimes Brings Forth Prodigality, And Prodigality Avarice; A Man's Resolution Is Very Often The Effect Of Levity, And His Boldness That Of Cowardice And Fear.

Truth Does Not Do As Much Good In The World As Its Imitations Do Harm.

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

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

Heat Of Blood Makes Young People Change Their Inclinations Often, And Habit Makes Old Ones Keep To Theirs A Great While.

Nothing Is So Catching As Example.

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

It Seems That Nature, Which Has So Wisely Disposed Our Bodily Organs With A View To Our Happiness, Has Also Bestowed On Us Pride, To Spare Us The Pain Of Being Aware Of Our Imperfections.

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

Philosophy Finds It An Easy Matter To Vanquish Past And Future Evils, But The Present Are Commonly Too Hard For It.

We Rarely Think People Have Good Sense Unless They Agree With Us.

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

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

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

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.

Too Great Refinement Is False Delicacy, And True Delicacy Is Solid Refinement.

What Men Have Called Friendship Is Only A Social Arrangement, A Mutual Adjustment Of Interests, An Interchange Of Services Given And Received; It Is, In Sum, Simply A Business From Which Those Involved Propose To Derive A Steady Profit For Their Own Self-love.

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

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.

The Head Does Not Know How To Play The Part Of The Heart For Long.

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

It's Easier To Know People In General Than One Person In Particular

Fortune Turns All Things To The Advantage Of Those On Whom She Smiles.

There Are More Defects In Temperament Than In The Mind.

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

It Is Much Easier To Seem Fitted For Posts We Do Not Fill Than For Those We Do.

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

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

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

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.

We Should Often Blush At Our Noblest Deeds If The World Were To See All Their Underlying Motives.

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

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

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

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.

The Only Good Copies Are Those Which Make Us See The Absurdity Of Bad Originals.

We Sometimes Differ More Widely From Ourselves Than We Do From Others.

We Are All Strong Enough To Bear Other Men's Misfortunes.

Sometimes We Lose Friends For Whose Loss Our Regret Is Greater Than Our Grief, And Others For Whom Our Grief Is Greater Than Our Regret.

Ridicule Dishonors A Man More Than Dishonor Does.

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

Service Culture

The World Is Full Of Pots Jeering At Kettles.

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

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.

Some Men Are So Full Of Themselves That When They Fall In Love, They Amuse Themselves Rather With Their Own Passion Than With Theperson They Love.

No Man Can Love A Second Time The Person Whom He Has Once Truly Ceased To Love.

In Love We Often Doubt What We Most Believe.

Nothing Is More Contagious Than Example, And No Man Does Any Exceeding Good Or Exceeding Ill But It Spawns New Deeds Of The Same Kind. The Good We Imitate Through Emulation, The Ill Through The Malignity Of Our Nature, Which Shame Keeps Locked Up, But Example Sets Free.

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 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.

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

Some Allow Themselves To Be Overcome By Panic, And Others Charge Because They Dare Not Remain At Their Posts. Some May Be Found Whose Courage Is Strengthened By Small Perils That Prepare Them To Face Greater Dangers. Some Are Daring When Facing Swords But Dread Facing Bullets; Others Dread Bullets Little But Fear Facing Swords A Lot.

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

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.

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

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