Background Image

...

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

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Listening Well And Answering

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

...

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

Views: 5

Topic

More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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

Pity Is A Sense Of Our Own Misfortunes In Those Of Another Man; It Is A Sort Of Foresight Of The Disasters Which May Befall Ourselves. We Assist Others,, In Order That They May Assist Us On Like Occasions; So That The Services We Offer To The Unfortunate Are In Reality So Many Anticipated Kindnesses To Ourselves.

Jealousy Is Not Love, But Self-love.

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

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

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

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

All Women Seem By Nature To Be Coquettes.

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

It Is Not Always From Valor Or From Chastity That Men Are Brave, And Women Chaste.

What Is Perfectly True Is Perfectly Witty.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Great Men Should Not Have Great Faults.

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

Those Who Have The Most Cunning Affect All Their Lives To Condemn Cunning; That They May Make Use Of It On Some Great Occasion, And To Some Great End.

Love's Greatest Miracle Is The Curing Of Coquetry.

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

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

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.

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

The Only Real Voyage Of Discovery Consists Not In Seeking New Landscapes But In Having New Eyes. The Glory Of Great Men Should Always Be Measured By The Means They Have Used To Acpuire It.

Things Often Offer Themselves To Our Mind In A More Finished Form In The Very First Thought, Than We Might Have Made Them By Muchart And Study.

What Keeps Us From Abandoning Ourselves Entirely To One Vice, Often, Is The Fact That We Have Several.

Familiarity Is A Suspension Of Almost All The Laws Of Civility, Which Libertinism Has Introduced Into Society Under The Notion Of Ease.

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.

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

The Gratitude Of Most Men Is But A Secret Desire Of Receiving Greater Benefits.

In The Misfortunes Of Our Best Friends We Always Find Something Not Altogether Displeasing To Us.

To Establish Oneself In The World, One Does All One Can To Seem Established There Already.

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.

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.

The Most Subtle Of Our Acts Is To Simulate Blindness For Snares That We Know Are Set For Us.

Good Advice Is Something A Man Gives When He Is Too Old To Set A Bad Example.

It May Be Said That The Vices Await Us In The Journey Of Life Like Hosts With Whom We Must Successively Lodge; And I Doubt Whether Experience Would Make Us Avoid Them If We Were To Travel The Same Road A Second Time.

The Qualities We Have Do Not Make Us So Ridiculous As Those Which We Affect To Have. [fr., On N'est Jamais Si Ridicule Par Les Qualites Que L'on A Que Par Celles Que L'on Affecte D'avoir.]

Politeness Of The Mind Is To Have Delicate Thoughts

People That Are Conceited Of Their Own Merit Take Pride In Being Unfortunate, That Themselves And Others May Think Them Considerable Enough To Be The Envy And The Mark Of Fortune.

It Is As Proper To Have Pride In Oneself As It Ridiculous To Show It To Others.

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

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

Power Over Others

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

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

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.

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

Before We Passionately Desire A Thing, We Should Examine The Happiness Of Its Possessor.

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

Our Good Qualities Expose Us More To Hatred And Persecution Than All The Ill We Do.

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.

There Is Such A Thing As A General Revolution Which Changes The Taste Of Men As It Changes The Fortunes Of The World.

Generosity Is The Vanity Of Giving.

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

Gratitude Is Like Credit; It Is The Backbone Of Our Relations; Frequently We Pay Our Debts Not Because Equity Demands That We Should, But To Facilitate Future Loans.

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

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

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

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

Pride Has A Greater Share Than Goodness In The Reproofs We Give Other People For Their Faults; And We Chide Them Not So Much To Make Them Mend Those Faults As To Make Them Believe That We Ourselves Are Without Fault.

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

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.

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

In Order To Succeed In The World People Do Their Upmost To Appear Successful.

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.

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

Everyone Takes Pleasure In Returning Small Obligations, Many People Acknowledge Moderate Ones; But There Are Only A Scarce Few Who Do Not Pay Great Ones With Ingratitude.

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

In The Human Heart There Is A Ceaseless Birth Of Passions, So That The Destruction Of One Is Almost Always The Establishment Of Another.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

Fortune Never Seems So Blind To Any As To Those On Whom She Bestows No Favors.

Every One Complains Of A Poor Memory, No One Of A Weak Judgment.

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

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

Nature Makes Merit, And Fortune Puts It To Work.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Women Know Not The Whole Of Their Coquetry.

There Is At Least As Much Eloquence In The Voice, Eyes, And Air Of A Speaker As In His Choice Of Words.

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.

As One Grows Older, One Becomes Wiser And More Foolish.

Love Often Leads On To Ambition, But Seldom Does One Return From Ambition To Love.

The Desire Of Appearing Clever Often Prevents Our Becoming So.

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

A Readiness To Believe Ill Of Others, Before We Have Duly Examined It, Is The Effect Of Laziness And Pride. We Are Eager To Find Aculprit, And Loath To Give Ourselves The Trouble Of Examining The Crime.

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.

It Is Most Difficult To Speak When We Are Ashamed Of Being Silent.

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

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.

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

Esteem Never Makes Ingrates.

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

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

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.

It Is Not Enough That We Should Succeed, But Our Friends Must Fail As Well.

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

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.

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

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

Absence Cools Moderate Passions, And Inflames Violent Ones; Just As The Wind Blows Out Candles, But Kindles Fires.

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

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

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

Confidence Always Pleases Those Who Receive It. It Is A Tribute We Pay To Their Merit, A Deposit We Commit To Their Trust, A Pledge That Gives Them A Claim Upon Us, A Kind Of Dependence To Which We Voluntarily Submit.

Truth Has Scarce Done So Much Good In The World As The False Appearances Of It Have Done Hurt.

Constancy In Love Is A Perpetual Inconstancy Which Fixes Our Hearts Successively To All The Qualities Of The Person Loved--sometimes Admiring One And Sometimes Another Above All The Rest--so That This Constancy Roves As Far As It Can, And Is No Better Than Inconstancy, Confined Within The Compass Of One Person.

Moderation Is Caused By The Fear Of Exciting The Envy And Contempt Which Those Merit Who Are Intoxicated With Their Good Fortune; It Is A Vain Display Of Our Strength Of Mind, And In Short The Moderation Of Men At Their Greatest Height Is Only A Desire To Appear Greater Than Their Fortune.

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

It Is A Wearisome Disease To Preserve Health By Too Strict A Regimen.

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

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.

A Fashionable Woman Is Always In Love - With Herself.

If We Never Flattered Ourselves We Should Have But Scant Pleasure.

Silence Is The Best Tactic For He Who Distrusts Himself.

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

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

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

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

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

The Thing That Makes Our Friendships So Short And Changeable Is That The Qualities And Dispositions Of The Soul Are Very Hard To Know, And Those Of The Understanding And Wit Very Easy.

We Pardon To The Extent That We Love.

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

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

Love Is The Smallest Part Of Gallantry.

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

One Kind Of Flirtation Is To Boast We Never Flirt.

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

Even The Most Disinterested Love Is, After All, But A Kind Of Bargain, In Which Self-love Always Proposes To Be The Gainer One Wayor Another.

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

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

In Friendship, As In Love, We Are Often More Happy From The Things We Are Ignorant Of Than From Those We Are Acquainted With.

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

The Height Of Cleverness Is To Be Able To Conceal It.

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

People Are More Slanderous From Vanity Than From Malice.

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

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

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

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

One May Outwit Another, But Not All The Others.

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.

Customary Use Of Artifice Is The Sign Of A Small Mind, And It Almost Always Happens That He Who Uses It To Cover One Spot Uncovers Himself In Another.

One Man May Be More Cunning Than Another, But No One Can Be More Cunning Than All The World.

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

For The Credit Of Virtue We Must Admit That The Greatest Misfortunes Of Men Are Those Into Which They Fall Through Their Crimes.

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.

Nothing Is So Capable Of Diminishing Self-love As The Observation That We Disapprove At One Time What We Approve At Another.

There Are Some Who Never Would Have Loved If They Never Had Heard It Spoken Of.

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

Not To Love Is In Love An Infallible Means Of Being Loved.

Affected Simplicity Is An Elegant Imposture.

Wisdom Is The Mind What Health Is To The Body.

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

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

We Say Little, When Vanity Does Not Make Us Speak.

We Often Pride Ourselves On Even The Most Criminal Passions, But Envy Is A Timid And Shamefaced Passion We Never Dare To Acknowledge.

Nature Has Concealed At The Bottom Of Our Minds Talents And Abilities Of Which We Are Not Aware.

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

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

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

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

Make Others Happy

One Thing Which Makes Us Find So Few People Who Appear Reasonable And Agreeable In Conversation Is, That There Is Scarcely Any One Who Does Not Think More Of What He Is About To Say Than Of Answering Precisely What Is Said To Him.

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

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

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

Service Culture

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

The Confidence Which We Have In Ourselves Give Birth To Much Of That, Which We Have In Others.

We Are Very Far From Always Knowing Our Own Wishes.

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

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

Criticism Sometimes Is Really Praise, And Praise Sometimes Slander.

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

Some Good Qualities Are Like The Senses: Those Who Are Entirely Deprived Of Them Can Have No Notion Of Them.

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.

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

We Should Only Affect Compassion, And Carefully Avoid Having Any.

However Great The Advantages Given Us By Nature, It Is Not She Alone, But Fortune With Her, Which Makes Heroes.

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.

What We Call Generosity Is For The Most Part Only The Vanity Of Giving; And We Exercise It Because We Are More Fond Of That Vanity Than Of The Thing We Give.

If One Judges Love According To The Greatest Part Of The Effects It Produces, It Would Appear To Resemble Rather Hatred Than Kindness.

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

We Make Promises To The Extent That We Hope-and Keep Them To The Extent That We Fear.

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

Time's Chariot-wheels Make Their Carriage-road In The Fairest Face.

Self-love Is More Cunning Than The Most Cunning Man In The World.

The Virtues And Vices Are All Put In Motion By Interest.

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.

Hope Is The Last Thing That Dies In Man; And Though It Be Exceedingly Deceitful, Yet It Is Of This Good Use To Us, That While We Are Traveling Through Life It Conducts Us In An Easier And More Pleasant Way To Our Journey's End.

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

You Are Never So Easily Fooled As When Trying To Fool Someone Else.

Those Who Give Too Much Attention To Trifling Things Become Generally Incapable Of Great Ones.

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

Trending Author

Philip Emeagwali

Brian Schweitzer

Category