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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Praise Is Flattery, Artful,

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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Those Only Are Despicable Who Fear To Be Despised.

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

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

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

Positive Thinking

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

A Well-trained Mind Has Less Difficulty In Submitting To Than In Guiding An Ill-trained Mind.

We May Seem Great In An Employment Below Our Worth, But We Very Often Look Little In One That Is Too Big For Us.

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

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

Though Most Of The Friendships Of The World Ill Deserve The Name Of Friendships; Yet A Man May Make Use Of Them On Occasion, As Of A Traffic Whose Returns Are Uncertain, And In Which 'tis Usual To Be Cheated.

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

Sobriety Is Concern For One's Health - Or Limited Capacity.

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.

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

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

Keeping Secrets

We Rarely Ever Perceive Others As Being Sensible, Except For Those Who Agree With Us.

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

The Heart Is Forever Making The Head Its Fool.

Everyone Complains Of His Memory, And Nobody Complains Of His Judgment.

Those Great And Glorious Actions That Dazzle Our Eyes With Their Luster Are Represented By Statesmen As The Result Of Great Wisdomand Excellent Design; Whereas, In Truth, They Are Commonly The Effects Of The Humors And Passions.

Gracefulness Is To The Body What Understanding Is To The Mind.

It Requires Greater Virtues To Support Good Fortune Than Bad.

We Give Nothing So Freely As Advice.

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

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

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 Differ More Widely From Ourselves Than We Do From Others.

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

We Sometimes Imagine We Hate Flattery, But We Only Hate The Way We Are Flattered.

A Man Often Thinks He Rules Himself, When All The While He Is Ruled And Managed; And While His Understanding Directs One Design, His Affections Imperceptibly Draw Him Into Another.

Ridicule Dishonors A Man More Than Dishonor Does.

What Men Call Friendship Is No More Than A Partnership, A Mutual Care Of Interests, An Exchange Of Favors - In A Word, It Is A Sort Of Traffic, In Which Self-love Ever Proposes To Be The Gainer.

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.

It Is With Sincere Affection Or Friendship As With Ghosts And Apparitions,--a Thing That Everybody Talks Of, And Scarce Any Hath Seen.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Distempers Of The Soul Have Their Relapses, As Many And As Dangerous As Those Of The Body; And What We Take For A Perfect Cureis Generally Either An Abatement Of The Same Disease Or The Changing Of That For Another.

There Are Few People Who Are More Often In The Wrong Than Those Who Cannot Endure To Be So.

If We Are Incapable Of Finding Peace In Ourselves, It Is Pointless To Search Elsewhere.

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.

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

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.

Silence Is The Best Tactic For He Who Distrusts Himself.

The Greatest Part Of Our Faults Are More Excusable Than The Methods That Are Commonly Taken To Conceal Them.

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

Preserving The Serious Health Condition Is Usually Painful.

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

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

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.

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

Why Is It That Our Memory Is Good Enough To Retain The Least Triviality That Happens To Us, And Yet Not Good Enough To Recollect How Often We Have Told It To The Same Person?

Not Good Enough

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

The Mind Is Always The Patsy Of The Heart.

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

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

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.

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.

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

One Kind Of Flirtation Is To Boast We Never Flirt.

In Every Walk Of Life Each Man Puts On A Personality And Outward Appearance So As To Look What He Wants To Be Thought; In Fact You Might Say That Society Is Entirely Made Up Of Assumed Personalities.

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.

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 Man, We May Be Sure, Is A Person Of True Worth, Whom Those Who Envy Him Most Are Yet Forced To Praise.

We Often See Malefactors, When They Are Led To Execution, Put On Resolution And A Contempt Of Death Which, In Truth, Is Nothing Else But Fearing To Look It In The Face--so That This Pretended Bravery May Very Truly Be Said To Do The Same Good Office To Their Mind That The Blindfold Does To Their Eyes.

As It Is The Characteristic Of Great Wits To Say Much In Few Words, So Small Wits Seem To Have The Gift Of Speaking Much And Saying Nothing.

People Are Often Vain Of Their Passions, Even Of The Worst, But Envy Is A Passion So Timid And Shame-faced That No One Ever Dare Avow Her.

One Can No More Look Steadily At Death Than At The Sun.

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

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

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

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

We Are Almost Always Wearied In The Company Of Persons With Whom We Are Not Permitted To Be Weary.

As Uncommon A Thing As True Love Is, It Is Yet Easier To Find Than True Friendship.

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

Avarice Misapprehends Itself Almost Always. There Is No Passion Which More Often Will Miss Its Aim, Nor Upon Which The Present Has So Much Influence To The Prejudice Of The Future.

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

It Is From A Weakness And Smallness Of Mind That Men Are Opinionated; And We Are Very Loath To Believe What We Are Not Able To Comprehend.

Truth Does Less Good In The World Than Its Appearances Do Harm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minds Of Moderate Caliber Ordinarily Condemn Everthing Which Is Beyond Their Range.

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

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.

No Fools Are So Difficult To Manage As Those With Some Brains.

We Often Do Shallow Good In Order To Accomplish Evil With Impunity.

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

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

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

The Heat Of Youth Is Not More Opposed To Safety Than The Coldness Of Age.

There Are Heroes In Evil As Well As In Good.

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

A Man Is Sometimes Better Off Deceived About The One He Loves, Than Undeceived.

We Do Not Despise All Those Who Have Vices, But We Do Despise Those That Have No Virtue.

Vices Are Ingredients Of Virtues Just As Poisons Are Ingredients Of Remedies. Prudence Mixes And Tempers Them And Uses Them Effectively Against Life's Ills.

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

We May Say Of Agreeableness, As Distinct From Beauty, That It Is A Symmetry Whose Rules Are Unknown.

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

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

Service Culture

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

When Our Vices Desert Us, We Flatter Ourselves That We Are Deserting Our Vices.

One May Outwit Another, But Not All The Others.

Extreme Boredom Provides Its Own Antidote.

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

Pride Indemnifies Itself And Loses Nothing Even When It Casts Away Vanity.

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.

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

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

Moderation Is A Fear Of Falling Into That Envy And Contempt Which Those Who Grow Giddy With Their Good Fortune Quite Justly Draw Upon Themselves. It Is A Vain Boasting Of The Greatness Of Our Mind.

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.

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.

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.

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

We Forgive Just So Long As We Love.

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

If It Requires Great Tact To Speak To The Purpose, It Requires No Less To Know When To Be Silent.

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

Love, Like Fire, Cannot Subsist Without Constant Impulse; It Ceases To Live From The Moment It Ceases To Hope Or To Fear.

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

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

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

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.

If One Judges Love By The Majority Of Its Effects, It Is More Like Hatred Than Like Friendship.

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

We Always Like Those Who Admire Us.

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

Those Who Are Condemned To Death Affect Sometimes A Constancy And Contempt For Death Which Is Only The Fear Of Facing It; So That One May Say That This Constancy And Contempt Are To Their Mind What The Bandage Is To Their Eyes.

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.

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

On Why I Don't Trust Democracy Without Extremely Powerful Systems Of Accountability And Recall What Seems To Be Generosity Is Often Only Disguised Ambition - Which Despises Small Interests To Gain Great Ones.

There Are Few Virtuous Women Who Are Not Bored With Their Trade.

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

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

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

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.

We Torment Ourselves Rather To Make It Appear That We Are Happy Than To Become So.

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

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

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

The Contempt Of Riches In Philosophers Was Only A Hidden Desire To Avenge Their Merit Upon The Injustice Of Fortune, By Despising The Very Goods Of Which Fortune Had Deprived Them; It Was A Secret To Guard Themselves Against The Degradation Of Poverty, It Was A Back Way By Which To Arrive At That Distinction Which They Could Not Gain By Riches.

There Are Heroes Of Wickedness, As There Are Of Goodness.

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

Weak People Cannot Be Sincere.

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

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

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

The Pleasure Of Love Is In Loving; We Are Happier In The Passion We Feel Than In What We Inspire.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

It Is Not Always For Virtue's Sake That Women Are Virtuous.

Gratitude Is A Lively Sense Of Benefits To Come.

In Love Deceit Almost Always Outstrips Distrust.

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

Only Strong Natures Can Really Be Sweet Ones; Those That Seem Sweet Are In General Only Weak, And May Easily Turn Sour.

Good And Bad Fortune Are Found Severally To Visit Those Who Have The Most Of The One Or The Other.

Few Men Know All The Ill They Do.

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

They That Apply Themselves To Trifling Matters Commonly Become Incapable Of Great Ones.

What Seems To Be Generosity Is Often No More Than Disguised Ambition, Which Overlooks A Small Interest In Order To Secure A Great One.

Confidence In Conversation Has A Greater Share Than Wit.

We Are Very Far From Always Knowing Our Own Wishes.

We Give Advice, We Do Not Inspire Conduct.

Jealousy Contains More Of Self-love Than Of Love.

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

Generally Speaking, We Would Make A Good Bargain By Renouncing All The Good That People Say Of Us, Upon Condition They Would Say No Ill.

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

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

The World Is Full Of Pots Jeering At Kettles.

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

We Are Easily Comforted For The Misfortunes Of Our Friends, When Those Misfortunes Give Us An Occasion Of Expressing Our Affection And Solicitude.

We Exaggerate The Glory Of Some Men In Order To Detract From That Of Others.

We Pardon As Long As We Love.

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

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

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

We Promise According To Our Hopes And Perform According To Our Fears.

Women Can More Easily Conquer Their Passion Than Their Coquetterie.

The Desire Of Talking Of Ourselves, And Showing Those Faults We Do Not Mind Having Seen, Makes Up A Good Part Of Our Sincerity.

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

Some People Are So Extremely Whiffling And Inconsiderable That They Are As Far From Any Real Faults As From Substantial Virtues.

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.

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

One Honor Won Is A Surety For More.

Innocence Does Not Find Near So Much Protection As Guilt.

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

Everyone Blames His Memory, No One Blames His Judgment.

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

As Long As We Love, We Can Forgive.

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