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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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The Blindness Of Men

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

True Friendship Destroys Envy, And True Love Destroys Coquetterie.

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

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

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

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

It Is The Habit Of Mediocre Minds To Condemn All That Is Beyond Their Grasp.

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

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

Being A Blockhead Is Sometimes The Best Security Against Being Cheated By A Man Of Wit.

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

The Art Of Putting Into Play Mediocre Qualities Often Begets More Reputation Than Is Achieved By True Merit.

How Can We Be Answerable For What We Shall Want In The Future, Since We Have No Clear Idea Of What We Want Now?

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

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

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.

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

There Are People Who, Like New Songs, Are In Vogue Only For A Time.

We Are More Often Treacherous Through Weakness Than Through Calculation.

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

The Most Violent Passions Sometimes Leave Us At Rest, But Vanity Agitates Us Constantly.

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.

All The Passions Make Us Commit Faults; Love Makes Us Commit The Most Ridiculous Ones.

We Rarely Think People Have Good Sense Unless They Agree With Us.

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

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

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.

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

We Make Promises To The Extent That We Hope-and Keep Them To The Extent That We Fear.

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

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

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.

Love Is One And The Same In The Original; But There Are A Thousand Different Copies Of It.

There Are Fine Things That Are More Brilliant When They Are Unfinished Than When Finished Too Much.

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.

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

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

Those Only Are Despicable Who Fear To Be Despised.

We Are Much Mistaken If We Think That Men Are Always Brave From A Principle Of Valor, Or Women Chaste From A Principle Of Modesty.

Magnanimity Is Sufficiently Defined By Its Name, Nevertheless One Can Say It Is The Good Sense Of Pride, The Most Noble Way Of Receiving Praise.

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

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

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

In Order To Succeed In The World People Do Their Upmost To Appear Successful.

Few Are Sufficiently Wise To Prefer Censure Which Is Useful To Praise Which Is Treacherous.

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

The Force We Use On Ourselves, To Prevent Ourselves From Loving, Is Often More Cruel Than The Severest Treatment At The Hands Of One Loved.

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

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

Numberless Arts Appear Foolish Whose Secret Motives Are Most Wise And Weighty.

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

Keeping Secrets

It Is Harder To Hide The Feelings We Have Than To Feign The Ones We Do Not Have.

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

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

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

Confidence Always Pleases Those Who Receive It. It Is A Tribute We Pay To Their Merit, A Deposit We Commit To Their Trust, A Pledge That Gives Them A Claim Upon Us, A Kind Of Dependence To Which We Voluntarily Submit.

More Men Are Guilty Of Treason Through Weakness Than Any Studied Design To Betray.

Too Great Refinement Is False Delicacy, And True Delicacy Is Solid Refinement.

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

One Is Never Fortunate Or As Unfortunate As One Imagines.

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

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.

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

We Think Very Few People Sensible, Except Those Who Are Of Our Opinion.

Jealousy Is In A Manner Just And Reasonable, As It Tends To Preserve A Good Which Belongs, Or Which We Believe Belongs To Us, On The Other Hand Envy Is A Fury Which Cannot Endure The Happiness Of Others.

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

Passion Often Renders The Most Clever Man A Fool, And Sometimes Renders The Most Foolish Man Clever.

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

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.

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.

To Understand Matters Rightly We Should Understand Their Details; And As That Knowledge Is Almost Infinite, Our Knowledge Is Always Superficial And Imperfect.

No One Thinks Fortune So Blind As Those She Has Been Least Kind To.

Only Great Men Have Great Faults.

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.

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

We Are Inconsolable At Being Deceived By Our Enemies And Being Betrayed By Our Friends, Yet We Are Often Content In Be Being Treated Like That By Our Own Selves.

Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own Wit.

To Praise Princes For Virtues They Do Not Possess Is To Insult Them Without Fear Of Consequences.

All Our Qualities, Whether Good Or Bad, Are Unstable And Ambiguous, And Almost All Are At The Mery Of Chance.

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

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

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

We Always Get Bored With Those Whom We Bore.

Jealousy Is Always Born With Love, But Does Not Die With It. In Jealousy There Is More Of Self-love Than Of Love To Another.

None But Great Men Are Capable Of Having Great Flaws.

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

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.

Sometimes We Meet A Fool With Wit, Never One With Discretion.

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

Bravery In Simple Soldiers Is A Dangerous Trade, To Which They Have Bound Themselves To Get Their Livelihood.

It Is Difficult To Define Love; All We Can Say Is, That In The Soul It Is A Desire To Rule, In The Mind It Is A Sympathy, And In The Body It Is A Hidden And Delicate Wish To Possess What We Love-plus Many Mysteries.

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

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

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.

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.

It Is Easy To Be Wise On Behalf Of Others Than To Be So For Ourselves.

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

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

The Sicknesses Of The Soul Have Their Ups And Downs Like Those Of The Body; What We Take To Be A Cure Is Most Often Merely A Respite Or Change Of Disease.

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

A Resolution Never To Deceive Exposes A Man To Be Often Deceived.

Intrepidity Is An Extraordinary Strength Of Soul, Which Raises It Above The Troubles, Disorders And Emotions Which The Sight Of Great Perils Can Arouse In It; By This Strength Heroes Maintain A Calm Aspect And Preserve Their Reason And Liberty In The Most Surprising And Terrible Accidents.

Nature Makes Merit, And Fortune Puts It To Work.

When A Man Is In Love, He Doubts, Very Often, What He Most Firmly Believes.

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

He Is A Truly Virtuous Man Who Wishes Always To Be Open To The Observation Of Honest Men.

In Friendship As Well As Love, Ignorance Very Often Contributes More To Our Happiness Than Knowledge.

We Seldom Find Any Person Of Good Sense, Except Those Who Share Our Opinions.

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

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

The Constancy Of The Wise Is Only The Talent Of Concealing The Agitation Of Their Hearts.

All The Passions Are Nothing Else Than Different Degrees Of Heat And Cold Of The Blood.

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.

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

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

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

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

What We Take For Virtue Is Often But An Assemblage Of Various Ambitions And Activities That Chance, Or Our Own Astuteness, Have Arranged In A Certain Manner; And It Is Not Always Out Of Courage Or Purity That Men Are Brave, And Women Chaste.

Self-love Is The Love Of A Man's Own Self, And Of Everything Else For His Own Sake. It Makes People Idolaters To Themselves, And Tyrants To All The World Besides.

The Passions Possess A Certain Injustice And Self Interest Which Makes It Dangerous To Follow Them, And In Reality We Should Distrust Them Even When They Appear Most Trustworthy.

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

Cunning And Treachery Proceed From Want Of Capacity.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Our Actions Seem To Have Their Lucky And Unlucky Stars, To Which A Great Part Of That Blame And That Commendation Is Due Which Is Given To The Actions Themselves.

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

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

If We Judge Love By Most Of Its Effects, It Resembles Rather Hatred Than Affection.

Narrowness Of Mind Is Often The Cause Of Obstinacy; We Do Not Easily Believe Beyond What We See.

Fortune Turns All Things To The Advantage Of Those On Whom She Smiles.

It Is More Difficult For A Man To Be Faithful To His Mistress When He Is Favored Than When He Is Ill Treated By Her.

Some Accidents There Are In Life That A Little Folly Is Necessary To Help Us Out Of.

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

Our Minds Are Lazier Than Our Bodies.

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

When Our Hatred Is Too Alive Puts Us Below What We Hate.

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

The Contempt Of Riches In The Philosophers Was A Concealed Desire Of Revenging On Fortune The Injustice Done To Their Merit, By Despising The Good She Denied Them.

A Weak Mind Is The Only Defect Out Of Our Power To Mend.

We Acknowledge That We Should Not Talk Of Our Wives; But We Seem Not To Know That We Should Talk Still Less Of Ourselves.

Men Are Often So Foolish As To Boast And Value Themselves Upon Their Passions, Even Those That Are Most Vicious. But Envy Is A Passion So Full Of Cowardice And Shame That No One Every Ever Had The Confidence To Own It.

Preserving The Serious Health Condition Is Usually Painful.

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

Women In Love Sooner Forgive Great Indiscretions Than Small Infidelities.

Nothing Is More Contagious Than Example, And No Man Does Any Exceeding Good Or Exceeding Ill But It Spawns New Deeds Of The Same Kind. The Good We Imitate Through Emulation, The Ill Through The Malignity Of Our Nature, Which Shame Keeps Locked Up, But Example Sets Free.

Everyone Praises His Heart, None Dare Praise Their Understanding.

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

It Is Easier To Know Men In General, Than Men In Particular.

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

Avarice Often Produces Opposite Results: There Are An Infinite Number Of Persons Who Sacrifice Their Property To Doubtful And Distant Expectations; Others Mistake Great Future Advantages For Small Present Interests.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Our Distrust Of Another Justifies His Deceit.

We Are Very Far From Always Knowing Our Own Wishes.

Our Enemies' Opinion Of Us Comes Closer To The Truth Than Our Own.

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

Many Men Are Contemptuous Of Riches; Few Can Give Them Away.

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

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

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.

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

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

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

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 Do Not Like To Praise, And Seldom Praise Anyone Without Self-interest.

Female Gossips Are Generally Actuated By Active Ignorance.

Perfect Valour Consists In Doing Without Witnesses That Which We Would Be Capable Of Doing Before Everyone.

There Are Few Women Whose Charm Survives Their Beauty.

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

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.]

Unfaithfulness Ought To Extinguish Love, And We Should Not Be Jealous When There Is Reason To Be. Only Those Who Give No Grounds For Jealousy Are Worthy Of It.

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

Eloquence: Saying The Proper Thing And Stopping.

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.

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.

Interest Blinds Some People, And Enlightens Others.

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

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

Few Men Know All The Ill They Do.

It Is More Often From Pride Than From Defective Understanding That People Oppose Established Opinions: They Find The Best Places Taken In The Good Party And Are Reluctant To Accept Inferior Ones.

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

The Great Interests Of Man: Air And Light, The Joy Of Having A Body, The Voluptuousness Of Looking.

When Fortune Surprises Us By Giving Us Some Great Office Without Having Gradually Led Us To Expect It, Or Without Having Raised Our Hopes, It Is Well Nigh Impossible To Occupy It Well, And To Appear Worthy To Fill It.

To Establish Yourself In The World A Person Must Do All They Can To Appear Already Established.

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

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

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

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

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

Fancy Sets The Value On The Gifts Of Fortune.

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

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

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

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