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Some Allow Themselves To Be Overcome By Panic, And Others Charge Because They Dare Not Remain At Their Posts. Some May Be Found Whose Courage Is Strengthened By Small Perils That Prepare Them To Face Greater Dangers. Some Are Daring When Facing Swords But Dread Facing Bullets; Others Dread Bullets Little But Fear Facing Swords A Lot.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Some Allow Themselves To

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Some Allow Themselves To Be Overcome By Panic, And Others Charge Because They Dare Not Remain At Their Posts. Some May Be Found Whose Courage Is Strengthened By Small Perils That Prepare Them To Face Greater Dangers. Some Are Daring When Facing Swords But Dread Facing Bullets; Others Dread Bullets Little But Fear Facing Swords A Lot.

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Those Who Are Incapable Of Committing Great Crimes Do Not Readily Suspect Them In Others.

Sometimes There Are Accidents In Our Lives The Skillful Extrication From Which Demands A Little Folly.

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.

It Is Far Better To Be Deceived Than Undeceived By Those Whom We Tenderly Love.

Affected Simplicity Is An Elegant Imposture.

Gratitude Is Like The Good Faith Of Traders: It Maintains Commerce, And We Often Pay, Not Because It Is Just To Discharge Our Debts, But That We May More Readily Find People To Trust Us.

Tricks And Treachery Are Merely Proofs Of Lack Of Skill.

Our Temper Sets A Price Upon Every Gift That We Receive From Fortune.

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.

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

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

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

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

The Smallest Fault Of Women Who Give Themselves Up To Love Is To Love.

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

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

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

Wit Sometimes Enables Us To Act Rudely With Impunity.

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

A Woman Often Thinks She Regrets The Lover, When She Only Regrets The Love.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

It Is Easier To Understand Mankind In General Than Any Individual Man.

Our Minds Are As Much Given To Laziness As Our Bodies.

Most Men Expose Themselves In Battle Enough To Save Their Honor, Few Wish To Do So More Than Sufficiently, Or Than Is Necessary To Make The Design For Which They Expose Themselves Succeed.

A Respectable Man May Love Madly, But Not Foolishly.

Weak People Cannot Be Sincere.

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

Strength And Weakness Of Mind Are Misnomers; They Are Really Nothing But The Good Or Bad Health Of Our Bodily Organs.

History Never Embraces More Than A Small Part Of Reality

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

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.

As One Grows Older, One Becomes Wiser And More Foolish.

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

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

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

A Man Often Imagines That He Acts, When He Is Acted Upon.

Time's Chariot-wheels Make Their Carriage-road In The Fairest Face.

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

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.

Jealousy Contains More Of Self-love Than Of Love.

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

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

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

The Sure Mark Of One Born With Noble Qualities Is Being Born Without Envy.

There Are Few Women Whose Charm Survives Their Beauty.

Some Counterfeits Reproduce So Very Well The Truth That It Would Be A Flaw Of Judgment Not To Be Deceived By Them.

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.

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

Moderation In People Who Are Contented Comes From That Calm That Good Fortune Lends To Their Spirit.

The Height Of Ability Consists In A Thorough Knowledge Of The Real Value Of Things, And Of The Genius Of The Age In Which We Live.

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.

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.

Too Great Haste To Repay An Obligation Is A Kind Of Ingratitude.

Perhaps Being Old Is Having Lighted Rooms Inside Your Head, And People In Them, Acting. People You Know, Yet Can't Quite Name.

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

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

The Clemency Of Princes Is Often But Policy To Win The Affections Of The People.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Keeping Secrets

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

For The Credit Of Virtue We Must Admit That The Greatest Misfortunes Of Men Are Those Into Which They Fall Through Their Crimes.

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

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

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.

Our Desires Always Disappoint Us; For Though We Meet With Something That Gives Us Satisfaction, Yet It Never Thoroughly Answers Our Expectation. [however Disappointment Can Always Be Removed If We Remember It Could Have Turned Out Worse.]

Few People Have The Wisdom To Prefer The Criticism That Would Do Them Good, To The Praise That Deceives Them.

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

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

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

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

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

The First Lover Is Kept A Long While, When No Offer Is Made Of A Second.

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.

We May Give Advice, But Not The Sense To Use It.

It Is Often Hard To Determine Whether A Clear, Open, And Honorable Proceeding Is The Result Of Goodness Or Of Cunning.

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

Flattery Is A Kind Of Bad Money, To Which Our Vanity Gives Us Currency.

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

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.

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

The Largest Ambition Has The Least Appearance Of Ambition When It Meets With An Absolute Impossibility In Compassing Its Object.

There Are Two Things Which Man Cannot Look At Directly Without Flinching: The Sun And Death.

Imagination Could Never Invent The Number Of Different Contradictions That Exist Innately In Each Person's Heart.

There Is Only One Kind Of Love, But There Are A Thousand Imitations.

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

If We Did Not Have Pride, We Would Not Complain Of It In Others.

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

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

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.

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

We Judge So Superficially Of Things, That Common Words And Actions Spoke And Done In An Agreeable Manner, With Some Knowledge Of What Passes In The World, Often Succeed Beyond The Greatest Ability.

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

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.

To Boast That One Never Flirts Is Actually A Kind Of Flirtation.

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.

What We Take For High-mindedness Is Very Often No Other Than Ambition Well Disguised, That Scorns Means Interests, Only To Pursuegreater.

Were We Faultless, We Would Not Derive Such Satisfaction From Remarking The Faults Of Others.

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

There Are Bad People Who Would Be Less Dangerous If They Were Quite Devoid Of Goodness.

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

People's Personalities, Like Buildings, Have Various Facades, Some Pleasant To View, Some Not.

Old Age Is A Tyrant, Who Forbids, Under Pain Of Death, The Pleasures Of Youth.

No Matter How Brilliant An Action, It Should Not Be Considered Great Unless It Was The Result Of A Great Motive.

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.

It Is A Common Fault Never To Be Satisfied With Our Fortune, Nor Dissatisfied With Our Understanding.

What Men Have Called Friendship Is Only A Social Arrangement, A Mutual Adjustment Of Interests, An Interchange Of Services Given And Received; It Is, In Sum, Simply A Business From Which Those Involved Propose To Derive A Steady Profit For Their Own Self-love.

We Are Almost Always Bored By Just Those Whom We Must Not Find Boring.

Great Men Should Not Have Great Faults.

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

To Establish Ourselves In The World, We Have To Do All We Can To Appear Established. To Succeed In The World, We Do Everything We Can To Appear Successful.

We Always Like Those Who Admire Us.

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

Our Envy Always Outlives The Felicity Of Its Object.

The Esteem Of Good Men Is The Reward Of Our Worth, But The Reputation Of The World In General Is The Gift Of Our Fate.

Some People Are Like Popular Songs That You Only Sing For A Short Time.

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

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

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

Commonplace Minds Usually Condemn What Is Beyond The Reach Of Their Understanding.

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

One Honor Won Is A Surety For More.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Confidence Which We Have In Ourselves Give Birth To Much Of That, Which We Have In Others.

Generosity Is The Vanity Of Giving.

What Is Perfectly True Is Perfectly Witty.

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

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.

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

The Trust That We Put In Ourselves Makes Us Feel Trust In Others.

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

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

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

Idleness Is More An Infirmity Of The Mind Than Of The Body.

In The Intercourse Of Life, We Please More By Our Faults Than By Our Good Qualities.

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

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.

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

Those Who Give Too Much Attention To Trifling Things Become Generally Incapable Of Great Ones.

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

Jealousy Is Not Love, But Self-love.

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.

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

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.]

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.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

Our Wisdom Is No Less At Fortune's Mercy Than Our Wealth.

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

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

We Are So Accustomed To Disguise Ourselves To Others That In The End We Become Disguised To Ourselves.

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.

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

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

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

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

The Applause We Give Those Who Are New To Society Often Proceeds From A Secret Envying Of Those Already Established.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Praise We Give To New Comers Into The World Arises From The Envy We Bear To Those Who Are Established.

In Love The Deceit Generally Outstrips The Distrust.

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

One Kind Of Happiness Is To Know Exactly At What Point To Be Miserable.

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

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

Self-interest Makes Some People Blind, And Others Sharp-sighted.

Moderation Resembles Temperance. We Are Not So Unwilling To Eat More, As Afraid Of Doing Ourselves Harm By It.

It Appears That Nature Has Hid At The Bottom Of Our Hearts Talents And Abilities Unknown To Us. It Is Only The Passions That Have The Power Of Bringing Them To Light, And Sometimes Give Us Views More True And More Perfect Than Art Could Possibly Do.

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

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

The Gallantry Of The Mind Consists In Agreeable Flattery.

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.

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

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

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