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Neither Love Nor Fire Can Subsist Without Perpetual Motion; Both Cease To Live So Soon As They Cease To Hope, Or To Fear.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Neither Love Nor Fire

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Neither Love Nor Fire Can Subsist Without Perpetual Motion; Both Cease To Live So Soon As They Cease To Hope, Or To Fear.

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Perpetual Motion

More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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

Not All Who Discharge Their Debts Of Gratitude Should Flatter Themselves That They Are Grateful.

Usually We Praise Only To Be Praised.

The Accent Of A Man's Native Country Remains In His Mind And His Heart, As It Does In His Speech.

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.

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.

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.

There Are No Accidents So Unlucky From Which Clever People Are Not Able To Reap Some Advantage, And None So Lucky That The Foolish Are Not Able To Turn Them To Their Own Disadvantage.

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

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

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

However Glorious An Action In Itself, It Ought Not To Pass For Great If It Be Not The Effect Of Wisdom And Intention.

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

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.

We Would Rather Speak Ill Of Ourselves Than Not Talk About Ourselves At All.

Women Can Less Easily Surmount Their Coquetry Than Their Passions.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Self Discipline

We Come Altogether Fresh And Raw Into The Several Stages Of Life, And Often Find Ourselves Without Experience, Despite Our Years.

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

Humility Is Often Only The Putting On Of A Submissiveness By Which Men Hope To Bring Other People To Submit To Them; It Is A Morecalculated Sort Of Pride, Which Debases Itself With A Design Of Being Exalted; And Though This Vice Transform Itself Into A Thousand Several Shapes, Yet The Disguise Is Never More Effectual Nor More Capable Of Deceiving The World Than When Concealed Under A Form Of Humility.

A Work Can Become Modern Only If It Is First Postmodern. Postmodernism Thus Understood Is Not Modernism At Its End But In The Nascent State, And This State Is Constant.

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

There Are People Who In Spite Of Their Merit Disgust Us And Others Who Please Us In Spite Of Their Faults.

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.

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.

Weakness Is More Opposed To Virtue Than Is Vice.

The Courage Of A Great Many Men, And The Virtue Of A Great Many Women, Are The Effect Of Vanity, Shame, And Especially A Suitabletemperament.

We Only Acknowledge Small Faults In Order To Make It Appear That We Are Free From Great Ones.

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.]

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

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

Fearlessness Is A More Than Ordinary Strength Of Mind, Which Raises The Soul Above The Troubles, Disorders, And Emotions Which Theprospect Of Great Dangers Are Used To Produce. And By This Inward Strength It Is That Heroes Preserve Themselves In A Calm And Quiet State, And Enjoy A Presence Of Mind And The Free Use Of Their Reason In The Midst Of Those Terrible Accidents That Amaze And Confound Other People.

Presence Of Mind

Men's Happiness And Misery Depends Altogether As Much Upon Their Own Humor As It Does Upon Fortune.

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

In Love, The Quickest Is Always The Best Cure.

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

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

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

There Is Nothing Men Are So Generous Of As Advice.

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

Novelty Is To Love Like Bloom To Fruit; It Gives A Luster Which Is Easily Effaced, But Never Returns.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Misfortunes Of Others

We Always Get Bored With Those Whom We Bore.

It Is As Common For Tastes To Change As It Is Uncommon For Traits Of Character.

Nothing Should Lessen Our Satisfaction With Ourselves As Much As When We Notice That We Disapprove Of Something At One Time That We Approve Of At Another Time.

Envy Is More Incapable Of Reconciliation Than Hatred Is.

Avarice Is More Directly Opposed To Thrift Than Generosity Is.

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.

Smallness Of Mind Is The Cause Of Stubbornness, And We Do Not Credit Readily What Is Beyond Our View.

We Feel Good And Ill Only In Proportion To Our Self-love.

Virtue Would Not Make Such Advances If There Were Not A Little Vanity To Keep It Company.

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

It Is Necessary, In Order To Know Things Well, To Know The Particulars Of Them; And These, Being Infinite, Make Our Knowledge Eversuperficial And Imperfect.

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

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

What Renders Other People's Vanity Insufferable Is That It Wounds Our Own.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

To Know How To Hide One's Ability Is Great Skill.

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

The Moderation Of People In Prosperity Is The Effect Of A Smooth And Composed Temper, Owing To The Calm Of Their Good Fortune.

The Only Security Is Courage.

We Cannot Possibly Imagine The Variety Of Contradictions In Every Heart.

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.

Some Weak People Are So Sensible Of Their Weakness As To Be Able To Make A Good Use Of It.

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.

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

Some Follies Are Caught, Like Contagious Diseases.

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.

Great Men Should Not Have Great Faults.

We Are Never Either So Fortunate Or So Misfortunate As We Imagine.

One Kind Of Flirtation Is To Boast We Never Flirt.

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.

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

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

Keeping Secrets

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

Consolation For Unhappiness Can Often Be Found In A Certain Satisfaction We Get From Looking Unhappy.

In Love Deceit Nearly Always Goes Further Than Mistrust.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

One Honor Won Is A Surety For More.

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

The Violence We Do To Ourselves In Order To Remain Faithful To The One We Love Is Hardly Better Than An Act Of Infidelity.

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

A Wise Man Thinks It More Advantageous Not To Join The Battle Than To Win.

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

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

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

To Eat Is A Necessity, But To Eat Intelligently Is An Art.

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

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

Treachery Is More Often The Effect Of Weakness Than Of A Formed Design.

I Always Say To Myself, What Is The Most Important Thing We Can Think About At This Extraordinary Moment.

Extraordinary Moments

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

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.

Praise Is A More Ingenious, Concealed, And Subtle Kind Of Flattery, That Satisfies Both The Giver And The Receiver, Though By Verydifferent Ways. The One Accepts It As A Reward Due To His Merit; The Other Gives It That He May Be Looked Upon As A Just And Discerning Person.

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.

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

As It Is The Mark Of Great Minds To Say Many Things In A Few Words, So It Is That Of Little Minds To Use Many Words To Say Nothing.

The Most Effectual Way To Be Deceived Is To Believe Oneself More Cunning Than One's Neighbors.

Ridicule Dishonours More Than Dishonour.

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

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

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

It Is Easier To Be Wise For Others Than For Ourselves.

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

The Rust Of Business Is Sometimes Polished Off In A Camp; But Never In A Court.

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.

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

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

When Our Vices Leave Us, We Like To Imagine It Is We Who Are Leaving Them.

Weak People Cannot Be Sincere.

Weakness Of Character Is The Only Defect Which Cannot Be Amended.

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

Service Culture

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

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.

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

Nothing Ought In Reason To Mortify Our Self-satisfaction More That The Considering That We Condemn At One Time What We Highly Approve And Commend At Another.

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

The Only Thing That Should Surprise Us Is That There Are Still Some Things That Can Surprise Us.

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

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

Love Has Its Name Borrowed By A Great Number Of Dealings And Affairs That Are Attributed To It--in Which It Has No Greater Part Than The Doge In What Is Done At Venice.

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

There Are Few Good Women Who Do Not Tire Of Their Role.

Considering How Little The Beginning Or The Ceasing To Love Is In Our Own Power, It Is Foolish And Unreasonable For The Lover Or His Mistress To Complain Of One Another's Inconstancy.

The Whimsicalness Of Our Own Humor Is A Thousand Times More Fickle And Unaccountable Than What We Blame So Much In Fortune.

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

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

Our Probity Is Not Less At The Mercy Of Fortune Than Our Property.

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.

Though Nature Be Ever So Generous, Yet Can She Not Make A Hero Alone. Fortune Must Contribute Her Part Too; And Till Both Concur, The Work Cannot Be Perfected.

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

Generosity Is The Vanity Of Giving.

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

We Often Bore Others When We Think We Cannot Possibly Bore Them.

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

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

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

Ability Wins Us The Esteem Of The True Men; Luck, That Of The People.

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

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

Interest Blinds Some People, And Enlightens Others.

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

Chance Corrects Us Of Many Faults That Reason Would Not Know How To Correct.

Cunning And Treachery Are The Offspring Of Incapacity.

Second-rate Minds Usually Condemn Everything Beyond Their Grasp.

Positive Thinking

Often We Are Firm From Weakness, And Audacious From Timidity.

Everyone Agrees That A Secret Should Be Kept Intact, But Everyone Does Not Agree As To The Nature And Importance Of Secrecy. Too Often We Consult Ourselves As To What We Should Say, What We Should Leave Unsaid. There Are Few Permanent Secrets, And The Scruple Against Revealing Them Will Not Last Forever.

Sincerity Is A Certain Openness Of Heart. It Is To Be Found In Very Few, And What We Commonly Look Upon To Be So Is Only A Cunningsort Of Dissimulation, To Insinuate Ourselves Into The Confidence Of Others.

Few Things Are Needed To Make A Wise Man Happy; Nothing Can Make A Fool Content; That Is Why Most Men Are Miserable.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

Humility Is The Worst Form Of Conceit.

The Best Way To Rise In Society Is To Use All Possible Means Of Persuading People That One Has Already Risen In Society.

Fancy Sets The Value On The Gifts Of Fortune.

History Never Embraces More Than A Small Part Of Reality

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

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

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

True Bravery Is Shown By Performing Without Witness What One Might Be Capable Of Doing Before All The World.

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

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

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.

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.

The Less You Trust Others, The Less You Will Be Deceived.

Sometimes There Is Equal Or More Ability In Knowing How To Use Good Advice Than There Is In Giving It.

We Easily Forgive Our Friends Those Faults That Do No Affect Us Ourselves.

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

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

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

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

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.

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

The Vices Enter Into The Composition Of The Virtues, As Poisons Into That Of Medicines. Prudence Collects And Arranges Them, And Uses Them Beneficially Against The Ills Of Life.

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