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

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Love, All Agreeable As

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Our Enemies' Opinion Of Us Comes Closer To The Truth Than Our Own.

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.

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

Never Give Anyone The Advice To Buy Or Sell Shares, Because The Most Benevolent Price Of Advice Can Turn Out Badly.

All Our Qualities, Whether Good Or Bad, Are Unstable And Ambiguous, And Almost All Are At The Mery Of Chance.

Solemnity Is A Device Of The Body To Hide The Faults Of The Mind.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

The Tranquility Or Agitation Of Our Temper Does Not Depend So Much On The Big Things Which Happen To Us In Life, As On The Pleasant Or Unpleasant Arrangements Of The Little Things Which Happen Daily.

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.

It Is Easier To Deceive Yourself, And To Do So Unperceived, Than To Deceive Another.

If Vanity Does Not Entirely Overthrow The Virtues, At Least It Makes Them All Totter.

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

The Intellect Is Always Fooled By The Heart.

Hope, Deceitful As It Is, Carries Us Through Life Agreeably Enough.

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

The Man Who Leaves A Woman Best Pleased With Herself Is The One Whom She Will Soonest Wish To See.

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.

There Are Two Sorts Of Constancy In Love One Arises From Continually Discovering In The Loved Person New Subjects For Love, The Other Arises From Our Making A Merit Of Being Constant.

The Violence Done Us By Others Is Often Less Painful Than That Which We Do To Ourselves.

Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own Wit.

We Like To Read Others But We Do Not Like To Be Read.

Understanding Others

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

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

There Are Follies As Catching As Contagious Disorders.

One Kind Of Flirtation Is To Boast We Never Flirt.

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

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

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

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

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

It Is With An Old Love As It Is With Old Age A Man Lives To All The Miseries, But Is Dead To All The Pleasures.

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

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.

The Reason Why So Few People Are Agreeable In Conversation Is That Each Is Thinking More About What He Intends To Say Than Others Are Saying.

Listening To Others

Jealousy Is Nothing More Than A Fear Of Abandonment

The Mark Of Extraordinary Merit Is To See Those Most Envious Of It Constrained To Praise.

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

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

Jealousy Springs More From Love Of Self Than From Love Of Another.

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

Our Distrust Of Another Justifies His Deceit.

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

In Infants, Levity Is A Prettiness; In Men A Shameful Defect; But In Old Age, A Monstrous Folly.

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

Many People Despise Wealth, But Few Know How To Give It Away.

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

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

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

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

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

It Is Given To Few Persons To Keep This Secret Well. Those Who Lay Down Rules Too Often Break Them, And The Safest We Are Able To Give Is To Listen Much, To Speak Little, And To Say Nothing That That Will Ever Give Ground Or Regret.

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.

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

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

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

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

Jealousy Contains More Of Self-love Than Of Love.

A Clever Man Reaps Some Benefit From The Worst Catastrophe, And A Fool Can Turn Even Good Luck To His Disadvantage.

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.

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

We Are Much Harder On People Who Betray Us In Small Ways Than On People Who Betray Others In Great Ones.

Tricks And Treachery Are Merely Proofs Of Lack Of Skill.

The Moderation Of Fortunate People Comes From The Calm Which Good Fortune Gives To Their Tempers.

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

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.

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.

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.

Some People Resemble Ballads Which Are Only Sung For A Certain Time.

The Same Strength Of Character Which Helps A Man Resist Love, Helps To Make It More Violent And Lasting Too. People Of Unsettled Minds Are Always Driven About With Passions, But Never Absolutely Filled With Any.

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

L'absence Diminue Les Mediocres Passions, Et Augmente Les Grandes,comme Le Vent Eteint Les Bougies, Et Allume Le Feu. Absence Diminishes Commonplace Passions, And Increases Great Ones, As Wind Extinguishes Candles And Kindles Fire.

A Man Does Not Please Long When He Has Only Species Of Wit.

We Always Get Bored With Those Whom We Bore.

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.

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.

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

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

Old People Love To Give Good Advice; It Compensates Them For Their Inability To Set A Bad Example.

Inability To Love

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

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.

We Easily Forget Crimes That Are Known To None But Ourselves.

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

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

The Desire Of Appearing Clever Often Prevents Our Becoming So.

We Are Sometimes As Different From Ourselves As We Are From Others.

Self Improvement

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Passions Of Youth Are Not More Dangerous To Health Than Is The Lukewarmness Of Old Age.

The Constancy Of The Wise Is Only The Art Of Keeping Disquietude To One's Self.

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.

Few People Know Death, We Only Endure It, Usually From Determination, And Even From Stupidity And Custom; And Most Men Only Die Because They Know Not How To Prevent Dying.

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

Fortune Never Appears So Blind As To Those To Whom She Does No Good.

A Good Woman Is A Hidden Treasure; Who Discovers Her Will Do Well Not To Boast About It.

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

When We Enlarge Upon The Affection Our Friends Have For Us, This Is Very Often Not So Much Out Of A Sense Of Gratitude As From A Desire To Persuade People Of Our Own Great Worth, That Can Deserve So Much Kindness.

Οur Own Distrust Somewhat Justifies The Deceit Of Others.

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

We Have More Ability Than Will Power, And It Is Often An Excuse To Ourselves That We Imagine That Things Are Impossible.

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

The Greatest Miracle Of Love Is The Cure Of Coquetry.

We Give Advice, We Do Not Inspire Conduct.

Philosophy Easily Triumphs Over Past And Future Ills; But Present Ills Triumph Over Philosophy.

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.

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

Nothing Is Rarer Than Real Goodness.

Only The Contemptible Fear Contempt.

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

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

For Most Men The Love Of Justice Is Only The Fear Of Suffering Injustice.

The Fondness Or Indifference That The Philosophers Expressed For Life Was Merely A Preference Inspired By Their Self-love, And Will No More Bear Reasoning Upon Than The Relish Of The Palate Or The Choice Of Colors.

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

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

Flattery Is A Base Coin Which Is Current Only Through Our Vanity.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Women Do Not Know All Their Powers Of Flirtation.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Service Culture

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 Seldom Find People Ungrateful So Long As It Is Thought We Can Serve Them.

Ungrateful People

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

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

Make Others Happy

We Would Rather See Those To Whom We Do Good, Than Those Who Do Good To Us.

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

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

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

When Our Hatred Is Too Alive Puts Us Below What We Hate.

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.

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

We Pardon To The Extent That We Love.

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

It Is Much Better To Learn To Deal With The Ills We Have Now Than To Speculate On Those That May Befall Us.

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

Idleness And Fear Keeps Us In The Path Of Duty, But Our Virtue Often Gets The Praise.

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

Keeping Secrets

Perfect Courage Is To Do Without Witnesses What One Would Be Capable Of Doing With The World Looking On.

A True Friend Is The Most Precious Of All Possessions And The One We Take The Least Thought About Acquiring.

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.

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

Philosophy Triumphs Easily Over Past Evils And Future Evils, But Present Evils Triumph Over It.

What Is Called Liberality Is Often Merely The Vanity Of Giving.

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

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.

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

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

Most Of Our Faults Are More Pardonable Than The Means We Use To Conceal Them.

We Had Better Appear What We Are, Than Affect To Appear What We Are Not.

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

He Is Safe Who Admits No One To His Confidence.

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

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

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.

A Man Is Perhaps Ungrateful, But Often Less Chargeable With Ingratitude Than His Benefactor Is.

What Makes Us So Bitter Against People Who Outwit Us Is That They Think Themselves Cleverer Than We Are.

We Do Not Wish Ardently For What We Desire Only Through Reason.

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

What Is Perfectly True Is Perfectly Witty.

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.

There Are Certain People Fated To Be Fools; They Not Only Commit Follies By Choice, But Are Even Constrained To Do So By Fortune.

Our Merit Gains Us The Esteem Of The Virtuous-our Star That Of The Public.

A Man May Be Sharper Than Another, But Not Than All Others.

We Endeavor To Make A Virtue Of The Faults We Are Unwilling To Correct.

Those Who Are Overreached By Our Cunning Are Far From Appearing To Us As Ridiculous As We Appear To Ourselves When The Cunning Of Others Has Overreached Us.

One Should Treat One's Fate As One Does One's Health; Enjoy It When It Is Good, Be Patient With It When It Is Poor, And Never Attempt Any Drastic Cure Save As An Ultimate Resort.

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

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

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.

That Good Disposition Which Boasts Of Being Most Tender Is Often Stifled By The Least Urging Of Self-interest.

Constancy In Love ... Is Only Inconstancy Confined To One Object.

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

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 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.

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.

We Often Brag That We Are Never Bored With Ourselves, And Are So Vain As Never To Think Ourselves Bad Company.

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

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

It Is Easier To Rule Others Than To Keep From Being Ruled Oneself.

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

Innocence Does Not Find Near So Much Protection As Guilt.

Everyone Praises His Heart, None Dare Praise Their Understanding.

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

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

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.

Moderation Is Like Sobriety: You Would Like To Have Some More, But Are Afraid Of Making Yourself Ill.

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

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

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