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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Praise Is A More

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

He Who Refuses Praise The First Time That It Is Offered Does So Because He Would Hear It A Second Time.

We Are Eager To Believe That Others Are Flawed Because We Are Eager To Believe In What We Wish For.

Fancy Sets The Value On The Gifts Of Fortune.

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

The Exceeding Delight We Take In Talking About Ourselves Should Give Us Cause To Fear That We Are Giving But Very Little Pleasureto Our Listeners.

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

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

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

Nature Makes Merit, And Fortune Puts It To Work.

Whatever Pretended Causes We May Blame Our Afflictions Upon, It Is Often Nothing But Self-interest And Vanity That Produce Them.

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.

There Are No Circumstances, However Unfortunate, That Clever People Do Not Extract Some Advantage From.

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.

Innocence Does Not Find Near So Much Protection As Guilt.

Gratitude Is A Lively Sense Of Benefits To Come.

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

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

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

Jealousy Is Not Love, But Self-love.

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.

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

Sometimes A Fool Has Talent, But Never Judgment.

Whilst Weakness And Timidity Keep Us To Our Duty, Virtue Has Often All The Honor.

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.

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

We Are Better Pleased To See Those On Whom We Confer Benefits Than Those From Whom We Receive Them.

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

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.

The Only Security Is Courage.

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.

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

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

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

The Intellect Is Always Fooled By The Heart.

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

Men Have Written In The Most Convincing Manner To Prove That Death Is No Evil, And This Opinion Has Been Confirmed On A Thousand Celebrated Occasions By The Weakest Of Men As Well As By Heroes. Even So I Doubt Whether Any Sensible Person Has Ever Believed It, And The Trouble Men Take To Convince Others As Well As Themselves That They Do Shows Clearly That It Is No Easy Undertaking.

It Is More Often From Pride Than From Ignorance That We Are So Obstinately Opposed To Current Opinions; We Find The First Places Taken, And We Do Not Want To Be The Last.

However Evil Men May Be They Dare Not Be Openly Hostile To Virtue, And So When They Want To Attack It They Pretend To Find It Spurious , Or Impute Crimes To It.

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

We Should Not Be Much Concerned About Faults We Have The Courage To Own.

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

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

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

There Is Merit Without Rank, But There Is No Rank Without Some Merit.

The World Is Full Of Pots Jeering At Kettles.

Hatred Is Stronger Than Friendship.

We Are Lazier In Our Minds Than In Our Bodies.

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

Sometimes, Occasions Occur In Life Which Demand You To Be A Little Foolish In Order To Skillfully Extricate Yourself.

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

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.

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

It Is Almost Always A Fault Of One Who Loves Not To Realize When He Ceases To Be Loved.

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

Cunning And Treachery Are The Offspring Of Incapacity.

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.

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

Avarice Is More Directly Opposed To Thrift Than Generosity Is.

Moral Severity In Women Is Only A Dress Or Paint Which They Use To Set Off Their Beauty.

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

Most Women Lament Not The Death Of Their Lovers So Much Out Of Real Affection For Them, As Because They Would Appear Worthy Of Love.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Love Much Better Those Who Endeavor To Imitate Us, Than Those Who Strive To Equal Us. For Imitation Is A Sign Of Esteem, But Competition Of Envy.

We Are Very Far From Always Knowing Our Own Wishes.

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

The Passions Often Engender Their Contraries.

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.

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

In All Aspects Of Life, We Take On A Part And An Appearance To Seem To Be What We Wish To Be--and Thus The World Is Merely Composed Of Actors.

We Should Not Be Upset That Others Hide The Truth From Us, When We Hide It So Often From Ourselves.

A Man, In Order To Establish Himself In The World, Does Everything He Can To Appear Established There.

The Common Foible Of Women Who Have Been Handsome Is To Forget That They Are No Longer So.

A Great Many Men's Gratitude Is Nothing But A Secret Desire To Hook In More Valuable Kindnesses Hereafter.

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

We Take Less Pains To Be Happy, Than To Appear So.

It Is Much Easier To Seem Fitted For Posts We Do Not Fill Than For Those We Do.

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

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

Nothing Is Rarer Than Real Goodness.

Loyalty Is In Most People Only A Ruse Used By Self-interest To Attract Confidence.

Beautiful Coquettes Are Quacks Of Love.

Prudence And Love Are Inconsistent; In Proportion As The Last Increases, The Other Decreases.

The More We Love, The Nearer We Are To Hate.

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

We Always Love Those Who Admire Us, But We Do Not Always Love Those Whom We Admire.

Friendship Is A Traffic Wherein Self-love Always Proposes To Be The Gainer.

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

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

Love's Greatest Miracle Is The Curing Of Coquetry.

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

Fortune And Humor Govern The World.

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

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

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.

Hypocrisy Is The Homage Vice Pays To Virtue.

Women's Virtue Is Frequently Nothing But A Regard To Their Own Quiet And A Tenderness For Their Reputation.

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

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.

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

A Fashionable Woman Is Always In Love - With Herself.

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

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

Some Crimes Get Honor And Renown By Being Committed With More Pomp, By A Greater Number, And In A Higher Degree Of Wickedness Thanothers. Hence It Is That Public Robberies, Plunderings, And Sackings Have Been Looked Upon As Excellencies And Noble Achievements, And The Seizing Of Whole Countries, However Unjustly And Barbarously, Is Dignified With The Glorious Name Of Gaining Conquests.

No Men Are Oftener Wrong Than Those That Can Least Bear To Be So.

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.

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

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

Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own Wit.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

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

We Always Get Bored With Those Whom We Bore.

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 Passions Do Very Often Give Birth To Others Of A Nature Most Contrary To Their Own. Thus Avarice Sometimes Brings Forth Prodigality, And Prodigality Avarice; A Man's Resolution Is Very Often The Effect Of Levity, And His Boldness That Of Cowardice And Fear.

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

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.

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.

Our Actions Are Like The Terminations Of Verses, Which We Rhyme As We Please.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

True Eloquence Consists In Saying All That Should Be Said, And That Only.

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

Why Can We Remember The Tiniest Detail That Has Happened To Us, And Not Remember How Many Times We Have Told It To The Same Person.

Our Repentances Are Generally Not So Much A Concern And Remorse For The Harm We Have Done, As A Fear Of The Harm We May Have Brought Upon Ourselves.

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

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

The Passions Are The Only Orators Which Always Persuade.

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

The Happiness And Unhappiness Of Men Depends As Much On Their Ethics As On Fortune.

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

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.]

Humility Is The Altar Upon Which God Wishes That We Should Offer Him His Sacrifices.

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

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

Were We Not Proud Ourselves, We Should Not Complain Of The Pride Of Others.

Men And Things Have Each Their Proper Perspective; To Judge Rightly Of Some It Is Necessary To See Them Near, Of Others We Can Never Judge Rightly But At A Distance.

Instead Of Considering That The Worst Way To Persuade Or Please Others Is To Try Thus Strongly To Please Ourselves, And That To Listen Well And To Answer Well Are Some Of The Greatest Charms We Can Have In Conversation.

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

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

There Is A Form Of Eminence Which Does Not Depend On Fate; It Is An Air Which Sets Us Apart And Seems To Prtend Great Things; It Is The Value Which We Unconsciously Attach To Ourselves; It Is The Quality Which Wins Us Deference Of Others; More Than Birth, Position, Or Ability, It Gives Us Ascendance.

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

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.

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

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

There Are Various Sorts Of Curiosity; One Is From Interest, Which Makes Us Desire To Know That Which May Be Useful To Us; And The Other, From Pride Which Comes From The Wish To Know What Others Are Ignorant Of.

Simplicity Is A Delicate Imposition.

Truth Is The Foundation And The Reason Of The Perfection Of Beauty, For Of Whatever Stature A Thing May Be, It Cannot Be Beautiful-and Perfect, Unless It Be Truly What It Should Be, And Possess Truly All That It Should Have.

Wit Sometimes Enables Us To Act Rudely With Impunity.

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

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example.

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

It Is Easier To Appear Worthy Of A Position One Does Not Hold, Than Of The Office Which One Fills.

A Clever Man Should Handle His Interests So That Each Will Fall In Suitable Order Of Their Value.

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.

The Evil That We Do Does Not Attract To Us So Much Persecution And Hatred As Our Good Qualities.

The Sure Way To Be Cheated Is To Think One's Self More Cunning Than Others.

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

Marriage Is The Only War In Which You Sleep With The Enemy.

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

The One Thing People Are The Most Liberal With, Is Their Advice.

Passion Often Makes Fools Of The Wisest Men And Gives The Silliest Wisdom.

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

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

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

Fortune Mends More Faults In Us Than Ever Reason Would Be Able To Do.

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.

The Prospect Of Being Pleased Tomorrow Will Never Console Me For The Boredom Of Today.

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

Great Souls Are Not Those Who Have Fewer Passions And More Virtues Than Others, But Only Those Who Have Greater Designs.

Happiness Is In The Taste, And Not In The Things Themselves; We Are Happy From Possessing What We Like, Not From Possessing What Others Like.

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

Luxury And Excessive Refinement Are Sure Forerunners Of The Decadence Of States, Because When All Individuals Seek Their Own Interests They Neglect The Public Weal.

The Older A Fool Is, The Worse He Is.

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

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

Some Disguised Deceits Counterfeit Truth So Perfectly That Not To Be Taken In By Them Would Be An Error Of Judgment.

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 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.

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

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

Humility Is The Worst Form Of Conceit.

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

Women Can More Easily Conquer Their Passion Than Their Coquetterie.

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

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

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

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.

Everyone Praises His Heart, None Dare Praise Their Understanding.

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

Positive Thinking

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

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

Silence Is The Safest Policy If You Are Unsure Of Yourself.

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