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Nothing Is So Contagious As Example; And We Never Do Any Great Good Or Evil Which Does Not Produce Its Like.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Nothing Is So Contagious

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Nothing Is So Contagious As Example; And We Never Do Any Great Good Or Evil Which Does Not Produce Its Like.

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

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

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

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

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

Weakness Is More Opposed To Virtue Than Is Vice.

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

Self-interest Speaks All Manner Of Tongues And Plays All Manner Of Parts, Even That Of Disinterestedness.

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

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 Fool Has Not Stuff Enough To Make A Good Man.

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

Almost Everyone Takes Pleasure In Repaying Trifling Obligations, Very Many Feel Gratitude For Those That Are Moderate; But There Is Scarcely Anyone Who Is Not Ungrateful For Those That Are Weighty.

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.

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

There Are Few People Who Would Not Be Ashamed Of Being Loved When They Love No Longer.

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

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

Mediocre Minds Usually Dismiss Anything Which Reaches Beyond Their Own Understanding.

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

We Give Advice, We Do Not Inspire Conduct.

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

Politeness Is A Desire To Be Treated Politely, And To Be Esteemed Polite Oneself.

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.

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.

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.

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

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

Nature Creates Ability; Luck Provides It With Opportunity.

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

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.

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

Love Is The Smallest Part Of Gallantry.

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

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

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

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

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.

The Caprice Of Our Temper Is Even More Whimsical Than That Of Fortune.

Women Can More Easily Conquer Their Passion Than Their Coquetterie.

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

Gallantry Of Mind Consists In Saying Flattering Things In An Agreeable Manner.

Misers Mistake Gold For Their Good; Whereas 'tis Only A Means Of Attaining It.

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

It Is As Easy To Unknowingly Deceive Yourself As It Is To Deceive Others.

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

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.

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

The Passions Often Engender Their Contraries.

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

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.

The Most Ingenious Men Continually Pretend To Condemn Tricking--but This Is Often Done That They May Use It More Conveniently Themselves, When Some Great Occasion Or Interest Offers Itself To Them.

Old Men Delight In Giving Good Advice As A Consolation For The Fact That They Can No Longer Set Bad Examples.

Fancy Sets The Value On The Gifts Of Fortune.

Humility Is The Sure Evidence Of Christian Virtues. Without It, We Retain All Our Faults Still, And They Are Only Covered Over With Pride, Which Hides Them From Other Men's Observation, And Sometimes From Our Own Too.

No Accidents Are So Unlucky [bad] But That The Wise May Draw Some Advantage [good] From Them.

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

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

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

There Are Some Faults Which, When Well Managed, Make A Greater Figure Than Virtue Itself.

Plenty Of People Want To Be Pious, But No One Yearns To Be Humble.

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

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

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

Our Actions Are Like Blank Rhymes, To Which Everyone Applies What Sense He Pleases.

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

A Man Would Rather Say Evil Of Himself Than Say Nothing.

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

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

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.

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.

All Men Are Equally Proud. The Only Difference Is That Not All Take The Same Methods Of Showing It.

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

Moderation Cannot Have The Credit Of Combatiug And Subduing Ambition, They Are Never Found Together. Moderation Is The Languor And Indolence Of The Soul, As Ambition Is Its Activity And Ardor.

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

The Breeding We Give Young People Is Ordinarily But An Additional Self-love, By Which We Make Them Have A Better Opinion Of Themselves.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

Happiness Is In The Taste, And Not In The Things.

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

Positive Thinking

When Great Men Permit Themselves To Be Cast Down By The Continuance Of Misfortune, They Show Us That They Were Only Sustained By Ambition, And Not By Their Mind; So That Plus A Great Vanity, Heroes Are Made Like Other Men.

The Heart Is Forever Making The Head Its Fool.

Self-love, As It Happens To Be Well Or Ill Conducted, Constitutes Virtue And Vice.

In The Human Heart New Passions Are Forever Being Born; The Overthrow Of One Almost Always Means The Rise Of Another.

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

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

There Are Many Predicaments In Life That One Must Be A Bit Crazy To Escape From.

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

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

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.

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

It Is As Commendable To Think Well Of Oneself When Alone, As It Is Ridiculous To Speak Well Of Oneself Among Others.

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

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

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

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

It Requires No Small Degree Of Ability To Know When To Conceal One's Ability.

There Are Reproaches Which Praise, And Praises Which Defame.

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

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

Very Few People Are Acquainted With Death. They Undergo It, Commonly, Not So Much Out Of Resolution As Custom And Insensitivity; And Most Men Die Because They Cannot Help It.

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

Men Would Not Live In Society Long If They Were Not Each Others Dupes.

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

Old Fools Are Greater Fools Than Young Ones.

Love's Greatest Miracle Is The Curing Of Coquetry.

The Generality Of Men Have, Like Plants, Latent Properties, Which Chance Brings To Light.

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 Intention Of Never Deceiving Often Exposes Us To Deception.

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

Sometimes Accidents Happen In Life From Which We Have Need Of A Little Madness To Extricate Ourselves Successfully

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

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.

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.

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

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

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

The Constancy Of Sages Is Nothing But The Art Of Locking Up Their Agitation In Their Hearts.

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

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

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.

Our Virtues Are Often, In Reality, No Better Than Vices Disguised.

What We Cut Off From Our Other Faults Is Very Often But So Much Added To Our Pride.

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

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

Too Great Cleverness Is But Deceptive Delicacy, True Delicacy Is The Most Substantial Cleverness.

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 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.

In Love Deceit Nearly Always Goes Further Than Mistrust.

We Often Shed Tears That Deceive Ourselves After Deceiving Others.

Deceiving Others

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

It Is No Tragedy To Do Ungrateful People Favors, But It Is Unbearable To Be Indebted To A Scoundrel.

Ungrateful People

We Frequently Are Troublesome To Others, When We Think It Impossible For Us Ever To Be So.

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.

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

It Is Not Expedient Or Wise To Examine Our Friends Too Closely; Few Persons Are Raised In Our Esteem By A Close Examination.

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

We Are Lazier In Our Minds Than In Our Bodies.

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

Absence Diminishes Mediocre Passions And Increases Great Ones, As The Wind Extinguishes Candles And Fans Fires.

Wisdom Is The Mind What Health Is To The Body.

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

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.]

Our Distrust Of Another Justifies His Deceit.

Few Know How To Be Old.

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

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

Ridicule Dishonours More Than Dishonour.

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

Folly Pursues Us At All Periods Of Our Lives. If Someone Seems Wise It Is Only Because His Follies Are Proportionate To His Age And Fortune.

People Are More Slanderous From Vanity Than From Malice.

Moderation Is An Ostentatious Proof Of Our Strength Of Character.

One Is Never As Happy Or As Unhappy As One Thinks.

Silence Is The Best Tactic For He Who Distrusts Himself.

Tastes In Young People Are Changed By Natural Impetuosity, And In The Aged Are Preserved By Habit.

Generosity Is The Vanity Of Giving.

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

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

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.

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

Nature Seems At Each Man's Birth To Have Marked Out The Bounds Of His Virtues And Vices, And To Have Determined How Good Or How Wicked That Man Shall Be Capable Of Being.

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.

A Woman Is Faithful To Her First Lover For A Long Time - Unless She Happens To Take A Second.

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

Timidity Is A Fault For Which It Is Dangerous To Reprove Persons Whom We Wish To Correct Of It.

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

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

There Is Many A Virtuous Woman Weary Of Her Trade.

Usually We Praise Only To Be Praised.

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

One Can Find Women Who Have Never Had One Love Affair, But It Is Rare Indeed To Find Any Who Have Had Only One.

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

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

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

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

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

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

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

We Often Pay Our Debts Not Because It Is Only Fair That We Should, But To Make Future Loans Easier.

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.

No Matter How Much Care We Put Into Hiding Our Passions Under The Appearances Of Devotion And Honor, They Can Always Be Seen To Peer Out Through These Covers.

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

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

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

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

Only The Great Can Afford To Have Great Defects.

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

The Grace Of Novelty And The Length Of Habit, Though So Very Opposite To One Another, Yet Agree In This, That They Both Alike Keepus From Discovering The Faults Of Our Friends.

However Greatly We Distrust The Sincerity Of Those We Converse With, Yet Still We Think They Tell More Truth To Us Than To Anyone Else.

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

Sometimes We Think We Dislike Flattery, But It Is Only The Way It Is Done That We Dislike.

Whatever Good Things People Say Of Us, They Tell Us Nothing New.

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.

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