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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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The Health Of The

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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Philosophy Easily Triumphs Over Past And Future Ills; But Present Ills Triumph Over Philosophy.

Some Weak People Are So Sensible Of Their Weakness As To Be Able To Make A Good Use Of It.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neither The Sun Nor Death Can Be Looked At Steadily.

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

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

The Love Of New Acquaintance Comes Not So Much From Being Weary Of What We Had Before, Or From Any Satisfaction There Is In Change, As From The Distaste We Feel In Being Too Little Admired By Those That Know Us Too Well, And The Hope Of Being More Admired By Those That Know Us Less.

When We Exaggerate Our Friends' Tenderness Towards Us, It Is Often Less From Gratitude Than From A Desire To Exhibit Our Own Virtue.

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

Gratitude Is Merely The Secret Hope Of Further Favors.

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

As It Is The Mark Of Great Minds To Say Many Things In A Few Words, So It Is That Of Little Minds To Use Many Words To Say Nothing.

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

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.

Pride, Which Inspires Us With So Much Envy, Is Sometimes Of Use Toward The Moderating Of It Too.

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

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

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.

If It Were Not For Poetry, Few Men Would Ever Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

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

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

It Is Not Enough To Have Great Qualities; We Should Also Have The Management Of Them.

Self Discipline

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

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

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

There May Be Talent Without Position, But There Is No Position Without Some Kind Of Talent.

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

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.

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

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

Only The Contemptible Fear Contempt.

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

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

We Are All Strong Enough To Bear Other Men's Misfortunes.

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.

There Are Few Women Whose Charm Survives Their Beauty.

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.

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

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

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

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We Should Desire Very Few Things Passionately If We Did But Perfectly Know The Nature Of The Things We Desire.

We Are Very Far From Always Knowing Our Own Wishes.

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.

Affected Simplicity Is An Elegant Imposture.

Second-rate Minds Usually Condemn Everything Beyond Their Grasp.

Positive Thinking

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

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.

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

Extreme Boredom Provides Its Own Antidote.

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

Whatever Pretext We May Give For Our Affections, Often It Is Only Interest And Vanity Which Cause Them.

Moderation Is Like Sobriety: You Would Like To Have Some More, But Are Afraid Of Making Yourself Ill.

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

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

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

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

Before We Passionately Desire A Thing, We Should Examine The Happiness Of Its Possessor.

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

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.

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.

Old Fools Are Greater Fools Than Young Ones.

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.

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

There Is Scarcely Any Man Sufficiently Clever To Appreciate All The Evil He Does.

Nothing Is Rarer Than True Good Nature; They Who Are Reputed To Have It Are Generally Only Pliant Or Weak.

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

If We Had No Faults, We Would Not Derive So Much Pleasure From Noting Those Of Other People.

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

It Requires Greater Virtues To Support Good Fortune Than Bad.

We Should Often Blush At Our Noblest Deeds If The World Were To See All Their Underlying Motives.

Nothing Is Rarer Than Real Goodness.

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

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.

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

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

Constancy In Love Is Of Two Sorts: One Is The Effect Of New Excellencies That Are Always Presenting Themselves Afresh, And Attractour Affections Continually; The Other Is Only From A Point Of Honor, And A Taking Of Pride Not To Change.

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

People That Are Conceited Of Their Own Merit Take Pride In Being Unfortunate, That Themselves And Others May Think Them Considerable Enough To Be The Envy And The Mark Of Fortune.

The Name And Pretense Of Virtue Is As Serviceable To Self-interest As Are Real Vices.

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

The Vivacity That Augments With Years Is Not Far From Folly.

How Can We Expect Another To Keep Our Secret If We Have Been Unable To Keep It Ourselves?

Keeping Secrets

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.

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.

The Desire To Be Thought Clever Often Prevents A Man From Becoming So.

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

Nothing Is So Catching As Example.

Women In Love Sooner Forgive Great Indiscretions Than Small Infidelities.

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

There Are Several Remedies Which Will Cure Love, But There Are No Infallible Ones.

The Greatest Miracle Of Love Is The Cure Of Coquetry.

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

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.

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

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

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

Reconciliation With Our Enemies Is Simply A Desire To Better Our Condition, A Weariness Of War, Or The Fear Of Some Unlucky Thing From Occurring.

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

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

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.

Few Things Are Impossible In Themselves: Application To Make Them Succeed Fails Us More Often Than The Means.

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

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

Before Strongly Desiring Anything, We Should Look Carefully Into The Happiness Of Its Present Owner.

The Duration Of Our Passions Is No More Dependent On Ourselves Than The Duration Of Our Lives.

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

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

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

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

Interest Blinds Some People, And Enlightens Others.

Those Who Are Themselves Incapable Of Great Crimes Are Ever Backward To Suspect Others.

You Are Never So Easily Fooled As When Trying To Fool Someone Else.

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

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

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.

We Never Desire Strongly, What We Desire Rationally.

Silence Is The Best Security To The Man Who Distrusts Himself.

We Speak Little If Not Egged On By Vanity.

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

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

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

The Intention Of Cheating No One Lays Us Open To Being Cheated Ourselves.

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

In The Human Heart There Is A Ceaseless Birth Of Passions, So That The Destruction Of One Is Almost Always The Establishment Of Another.

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

Positive Thinking

Men Frequently Do Good Only To Give Themselves Opportunity Of Doing Ill With Impunity.

Our Envy Always Outlives The Felicity Of Its Object.

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

Hypocrisy Is The Homage Vice Pays To Virtue.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Hatred Is Stronger Than Friendship.

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.

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

Old People Love To Give Good Advice; It Compensates Them For Their Inability To Set A Bad Example.

Inability To Love

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

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.

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

We Give Advice, But We Cannot Give The Wisdom To Profit By It.

Love Of Fame, Fear Of Disgrace, Schemes For Advancement, Desire To Make Life Comfortable And Pleasant, And The Urge To Humiliate Others Are Often At The Root Of The Valour Men Hold In Such High Esteem.

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

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

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

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

There Is Many A Virtuous Woman Weary Of Her Trade.

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

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

In Great Affairs We Ought To Apply Ourselves Less To Creating Chances Than To Profiting From Those That Offer.

It Is Easier To Fall In Love When You Are Out Of It Than To Get Out Of It When You Are In.

Falling In Love

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

Women Know Not The Whole Of Their Coquetry.

Organize One's Values In The Order Of Their Worth

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

Eloquence Resides As Much In The Tone Of Voice, In The Eyes, And In The Expression Of The Face, As In The Choice Of Words.

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

No Man Deserves To Be Praised For His Goodness, Who Has It Not In His Power To Be Wicked. Goodness Without That Power Is Generally Nothing More Than Sloth, Or An Impotence Of Will.

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.

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.

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

Fancy Sets The Value On The Gifts Of Fortune.

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.

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

Madmen And Fools See Everything Through The Medium Of Humor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Advice Is Something A Man Gives When He Is Too Old To Set A Bad Example.

Nature Creates Ability; Luck Provides It With Opportunity.

People Are More Slanderous From Vanity Than From Malice.

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

Innocence Is Lucky If It Finds The Same Protection As Guilt

When Love Becomes Labored We Welcome An Act Of Infidelity Towards Ourselves To Free Us From Fidelity.

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.

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

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