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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Kings Do With Men

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Reason Why Most Women Have So Little Sense Of Friendship Is That This Is But A Cold And Flat Passion To Those That Have Felt That Of Love.

There Are A Great Many Simpletons Who Know Themselves To Be So, And Who Make A Very Cunning Use Of Their Own Simplicity.

We Should Not Judge A Man's Merits By His Great Qualities, But By The Use He Makes Of Them.

A Man Of Understanding Finds Less Difficulty In Submitting To A Wrong-headed Fellow, Than In Attempting To Set Him Right.

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

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.

There Are Few Things We Should Keenly Desire If We Really Knew What We Wanted.

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.

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.

As Love Increases, Prudence Diminishes.

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

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

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

No Fools Are So Difficult To Manage As Those With Some Brains.

The Desire Of Appearing Clever Often Prevents Our Becoming So.

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

All Who Know Their Own Minds Know Not Their Own Hearts.

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

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.

We Judge So Superficially Of Things, That Common Words And Actions Spoke And Done In An Agreeable Manner, With Some Knowledge Of What Passes In The World, Often Succeed Beyond The Greatest Ability.

Good Taste Comes More From The Judgment Than From The Mind.

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

Characteristics

One Of The Greatest And Also The Commonest Of Faults Is For Men To Believe That, Because They Never Hear Their Shortcomings Spoken Of, Or Read About Them In Cold Print, Others Can Have No Knowledge Of Them. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Reflections Of Lichtenberg We Are Often More Agreeable Through Our Faults Than Our Good Qualities.

It Is Often Laziness And Timidity That Keep Us Within Our Duty While Virtue Gets All The Credit.

Humility Is Often A False Front We Employ To Gain Power Over Others.

Power Over Others

It Is Great Folly To Wish To Be Wise All Alone.

Cunning And Treachery Proceed From Want Of Capacity.

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

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

Of All Our Faults, The One That We Excuse Most Easily Is Idleness.

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.

Friendship Is Only A Reciprocal Conciliation Of Interests, And An Exchange Of Good Offices; It Is A Species Of Commerce Out Of Which Self-love Always Expects To Gain Something.

The Temperament That Produces A Talent For Little Things Is The Opposite Of That Required For Great Ones.

There Are More Defects In Temperament Than In The Mind.

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.

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

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

In Love Deceit Almost Always Outstrips Distrust.

The Principal Point Of Cleverness Is To Know How To Value Things Just As They Deserve.

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.

Those Who Are Incapable Of Committing Great Crimes Do Not Readily Suspect Them In Others.

How Can We Be Answerable For What We Shall Want In The Future, Since We Have No Clear Idea Of What We Want Now?

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.

We Give Advice, But We Cannot Give The Wisdom To Profit By It.

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.

History Never Embraces More Than A Small Part Of Reality

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

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

Those Only Are Despicable Who Fear To Be Despised.

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

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

One Cannot Answer For His Courage When He Has Never Been In Danger.

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.

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

There Is No Better Proof Of A Man's Being Truly Good Than His Desiring To Be Constantly Under The Observation Of Good Men.

The Defects And Faults Of The Mind Are Like Wounds In The Body; After All Imaginable Care Has Been Taken To Heal Them Up, Still There Will Be A Scar Left Behind, And They Are In Continual Danger Of Breaking The Skin And Bursting Out Again.

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

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

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

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Health Of The Soul Is As Precarious As That Of The Body; For When We Seem Secure From Passions, We Are No Less In Danger Of Their Infection Than We Are Of Falling Ill When We Appear To Be Well.

Simplicity Is A Delicate Imposition.

The Most Clever And Polite Are Content With Only Seeming Attentive While We Perceive In Their Mind And Eyes That At The Very Time They Are Wandering From What Is Said And Desire To Return To What They Want To Say.

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

In Their Early Passions Women Are In Love With The Lover, Later They Are In Love With Love.

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

Our Wisdom Is No Less At Fortune's Mercy Than Our Wealth.

Innocence Is Lucky If It Finds The Same Protection As Guilt

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.

The Applause We Give Those Who Are New To Society Often Proceeds From A Secret Envying Of Those Already Established.

Vanity, Shame, And Above All Disposition, Often Make Men Brave And Women Chaste.

To Praise Great Actions With Sincerity May Be Said To Be Taking Part In Them.

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

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.

Even Women Are Perfect At The Outset.

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.]

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

Whatever Discoveries We May Have Made In The Regions Of Self-love, There Still Remain Many Unknown Lands.

What Makes Us So Often Discontented With Those Who Transact Business For Us Is That They Almost Always Abandon The Interest Of Their Friends For The Interest Of The Business, Because They Wish To Have The Honor Of Succeeding In That Which They Have Undertaken.

No One Thinks Fortune So Blind As Those She Has Been Least Kind To.

Virtue Would Go Far If Vanity Did Not Keep It Company.

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

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

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.

Magnanimity Is Sufficiently Defined By Its Name, Nevertheless One Can Say It Is The Good Sense Of Pride, The Most Noble Way Of Receiving Praise.

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

Truth Does Less Good In The World Than Its Appearances Do Harm.

In Growing Old, We Become More Foolish - And More Wise.

Love Is The Smallest Part Of Gallantry.

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

Few Men Know All The Ill They Do.

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

Every One Speaks Well Of His Own Heart, But No One Dares Speak Well Of His Own Mind.

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

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

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

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

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.

Men Are Inconsolable Concerning The Treachery Of Their Friends Or The Deceptions Of Their Enemies; And Yet They Are Often Very Highly Satisfied To Be Both Deceived And Betrayed By Their Own Selves.

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

Self-love Increases Or Diminishes For Us The Good Qualities Of Our Friends, In Proportion To The Satisfaction We Feel With Them; And We Judge Of Their Merit By The Manner In Which They Act Towards Us.

Fortune Makes Our Virtues And Vices Visible, Just As Light Does The Objects Of Sight.

Happiness Does Not Consist In Things Themselves But In The Relish We Have Of Them; And A Man Has Attained It When He Enjoys What He Loves And Desires Himself, And Not What Other People Think Lovely And Desirable.

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 More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

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.

Fortune Converts Everything To The Advantage Of Her Favorites.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

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.

Great Names Abase, Instead Of Elevating, Those Who Do Not Know How To Bear Them.

Small Minds Are Much Distressed By Little Things. Great Minds See Them All But Are Not Upset By Them.

Unfaithfulness Ought To Extinguish Love, And We Should Not Be Jealous When There Is Reason To Be. Only Those Who Give No Grounds For Jealousy Are Worthy Of It.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Who Imagines He Can Do Without The World Deceives Himself Much; But He Who Fancies The World Cannot Do Without Him Is Still More Mistaken.

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

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.

Affected Simplicity Is An Elegant Imposture.

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.

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

Hope Is The Last Thing That Dies In Man.

A Man Cannot Please Long Who Has Only One Kind Of Wit.

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

There Is No Praise We Have Not Lavished Upon Prudence; And Yet She Cannot Assure To Us The Most Trifling Event.

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

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

It Is Impossible To Love A Second Time What We Have Really Ceased To Love.

There Are Few Women Whose Charm Survives Their Beauty.

Opportunity Makes Us Known To Others, But More To Ourselves.

True Friendship Destroys Envy, And True Love Destroys Coquetterie.

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

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

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

There Is No Disguise Which Can Hide Love For Long Where It Exists, Or Simulate It Where It Does Not.

The Trust That We Put In Ourselves Makes Us Feel Trust In Others.

We Never Desire Strongly, What We Desire Rationally.

In Love, The Quickest Is Always The Best Cure.

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

If It Were Not For Poetry, Few Men Would Ever Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

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

Only Great Men Have Great Faults.

Hypocrisy Is The Homage Vice Pays To Virtue.

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

The Force We Use On Ourselves, To Prevent Ourselves From Loving, Is Often More Cruel Than The Severest Treatment At The Hands Of One Loved.

The Simplest Man With Passion Will Be More Persuasive Than The Most Eloquent Without.

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

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

Hatred Is Stronger Than Friendship.

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.

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

Make Others Happy

If It Were Not For The Company Of Fools, A Witty Man Would Often Be Greatly At A Loss.

Love Is To The Soul Of Him Who Loves, What The Soul Is To The Body Which It Animates.

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

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

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

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

We Forgive Just So Long As We Love.

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

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.

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

Raillery Is More Insupportable Than Wrong; Because We Have A Right To Resent Injuries, But Are Ridiculous In Being Angry At A Jest.

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.

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

There Are Follies As Catching As Contagious Disorders.

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

If It Requires Great Tact To Speak To The Purpose, It Requires No Less To Know When To Be Silent.

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.

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

Nothing Is Impossible; There Are Ways That Lead To Everything, And If We Had Sufficient Will We Should Always Have Sufficient Means. It Is Often Merely For An Excuse That We Say Things Are Impossible.

There Are Women Who Never Had An Intrigue; But There Are Scarce Any Who Never Had But One.

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

Before Strongly Desiring Anything, We Should Look Carefully Into The Happiness Of Its Present Owner.

There Are But Very Few Men Clever Enough To Know All The Mischief They Do.

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

If We Did Not Have Pride, We Would Not Complain Of It In Others.

The Passions Often Engender Their Contraries.

The Secret Of Pleasing In Conversation Is Not To Explain Too Much Everything; To Say Them Half And Leave A Little For Divination Is A Mark Of The Good Opinion We Have Of Others, And Nothing Flatters Their Self-love More.

We Give Nothing So Freely As Advice.

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

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

Jealousy Lives Upon Doubts. It Becomes Madness Or Ceases Entirely As Soon As We Pass From Doubt To Certainty.

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

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.

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