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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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There Are No Events

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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.

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

Tricks And Treachery Are Merely Proofs Of Lack Of Skill.

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

The Greatest Miracle Of Love Is The Cure Of Coquetry.

Silence Is The Safest Course For Any Man To Adopt Who Distrust Himself.

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

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

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

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

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.

Youth Is A Perpetual Intoxication; It Is A Fever Of The Mind.

Self-love Makes Our Friends Appear More Or Less Deserving In Proportion To The Delight We Take In Them, And The Measures By Whichwe Judge Of Their Worth Depend Upon The Manner Of Their Conversing With Us.

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

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

The Temperament That Produces A Talent For Little Things Is The Opposite Of That Required For Great Ones.

Gratitude Is A Useless Word. You Will Find It In A Dictionary But Not In Life.

We Easily Forget Crimes That Are Known To None But Ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

However Greatly We Distrust The Sincerity Of Those We Converse With, Yet Still We Think They Tell More Truth To Us Than To Anyone Else.

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

There Are Heroes In Evil As Well As In Good.

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

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

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

However Wicked Men May Be, They Do Not Dare Openly To Appear The Enemies Of Virtue, And When They Desire To Persecute Her They Either Pretend To Believe Her False Or Attribute Crimes To Her.

Narrow Minds Think Nothing Right That Is Above Their Own Capacity.

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

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

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

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

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 Older A Fool Is, The Worse He Is.

When The Soul Is Ruffled By The Remains Of One Passion, It Is More Disposed To Entertain A New One Than When It Is Entirely Curedand At Rest From All.

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

The Happiness And Misery Of Men Depend No Less On Temper Than Fortune.

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

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

The Strongest Symptom Of Wisdom In Man Is His Being Sensible Of His Own Follies.

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

Some Follies Are Caught, Like Contagious Diseases.

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

Those Who Most Obstinately Oppose The Most Widely-held Opinions More Often Do So Because Of Pride Than Lack Of Intelligence. They Find The Best Places In The Right Set Already Taken, And They Do Not Want Back Seats.

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

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

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

We Pardon As Long As We Love.

Pride Does Not Wish To Owe And Vanity Does Not Wish To Pay.

The Aversion To Lying Is Often A Hidden Ambition To Render Our Words Credible And Weighty, And To Attach A Religious Aspect To Our Conversation.

Jealousy Is Not Love, But Self-love.

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

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

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.

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

He Who Lives Without Committing Any Folly Is Not So Wise As He Thinks. [fr., Qui Vit Sans Folie N'est Pas Si Sage Qu'il Croit.]

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Keeping Secrets

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

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

There Are Two Sorts Of Constancy In Love One Arises From Continually Discovering In The Loved Person New Subjects For Love, The Other Arises From Our Making A Merit Of Being Constant.

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.

One Of The Greatest And Also The Commonest Of Faults Is For Men To Believe That, Because They Never Hear Their Shortcomings Spoken Of, Or Read About Them In Cold Print, Others Can Have No Knowledge Of Them. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Reflections Of Lichtenberg We Are Often More Agreeable Through Our Faults Than Our Good Qualities.

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

In All Professions Each Affects A Look And An Exterior To Appear What He Wishes The World To Believe That He Is. Thus We May Say That The Whole World Is Made Up Of Appearances.

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

Pity Is Often A Reflection Of Our Own Evils In The Ills Of Others. It Is A Delicate Foresight Of The Troubles Into Which We May Fall.

Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own Wit.

We Easily Forget Our Faults When No One Knows Them But Ourselves.

There Are Few Occasions When We Should Make A Bad Bargain By Giving Up The Good On Condition That No Ill Was Said Of Us.

Organize One's Values In The Order Of Their Worth

Nothing Should Lessen Our Satisfaction With Ourselves As Much As When We Notice That We Disapprove Of Something At One Time That We Approve Of At Another Time.

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

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

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.

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.

Fortunate Persons Hardly Ever Amend Their Ways: They Always Imagine That They Are In The Right When Fortune Upholds Their Bad Conduct.

Happiness Does Not Consist In Things Themselves But In The Relish We Have Of Them.

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

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

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

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.

The Daily Employment Of Cunning Marks A Little Mind, It Generally Happens That Those Who Resort To It In One Respect To Protect Themselves Lay Themselves Open To Attack In Another.

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.

However Rare True Love May Be, It Is Less So Than True Friendship.

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

What Makes The Pain We Feel From Shame And Jealousy So Cutting Is That Vanity Can Give Us No Assistance In Bearing Them.

The Only Thing That Should Astonish Us Is That Anything Can Yet Astonish Us.

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

Envy Is More Incapable Of Reconciliation Than Hatred Is.

The Secret Of Pleasing In Conversation Is Not To Explain Too Much Everything; To Say Them Half And Leave A Little For Divination Is A Mark Of The Good Opinion We Have Of Others, And Nothing Flatters Their Self-love More.

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

A Person Well Satisfied With Themselves Is Seldom Satisfied With Others, And Others, Rarely Are With Them.

Nature Has Concealed At The Bottom Of Our Minds Talents And Abilities Of Which We Are Not Aware.

Jealousy Is Bred In Doubts. When Those Doubts Change Into Certainties, Then The Passion Either Ceases Or Turns Absolute Madness.

Of All Our Faults, The One We Avow Most Easily Is Idleness; We Persuade Ourselves That It Is Allied To All The Peaceable Virtues,and As For The Others, That It Does Not Destroy Them Utterly, But Only Suspends The Exercise Of Their Functions.

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.

Weakness Of Character Is The Only Defect Which Cannot Be Amended.

It Is The Prerogative Of Great Men Only To Have Great Defects.

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

We Always Get Bored With Those Whom We Bore.

That Which Occasions So Many Mistakes In The Computations Of Men, When They Expect Return For Favors, Is That The Giver's Pride And The Receiver's Cannot Agree Upon The Value Of The Kindness Done.

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

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

Gravity Is A Mysterious Carriage Of The Body Invented To Cover The Defects Of The Mind.

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

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

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

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

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

A True Friend Is The Most Precious Of All Possessions And The One We Take The Least Thought About Acquiring.

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

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

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

Of All Our Faults, The One That We Excuse Most Easily Is Idleness.

Preserving The Serious Health Condition Is Usually Painful.

We Are Nearer Loving Those Who Hate Us Than Those Who Love Us More Than We Wish.

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

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

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

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

Service Culture

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

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

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

The Surest Way To Be Deceived Is To Consider Oneself Cleverer Than Others.

There Are Some Bad Qualities Which Make Great Talents.

Our Probity Is Not Less At The Mercy Of Fortune Than Our Property.

We Like To Read Others But We Do Not Like To Be Read.

Understanding Others

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

Hope Is The Last Thing That Dies In Man; And Though It Be Exceedingly Deceitful, Yet It Is Of This Good Use To Us, That While We Are Traveling Through Life It Conducts Us In An Easier And More Pleasant Way To Our Journey's End.

Humility Is Often Only A Feigned Submissiveness By Which Men Hope To Bring Other People To Submit To Them; It Is A More Calculated Sort Of Pride.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Weakness Is More Opposed To Virtue Than Is Vice.

We Love Everything On Our Own Account; We Even Follow Our Own Taste And Inclination When We Prefer Our Friends To Ourselves; And Yet It Is This Preference Alone That Constitutes True And Perfect Friendship.

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

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

Usually We Praise Only To Be Praised.

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.

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.

It Is No Tragedy To Do Ungrateful People Favors, But It Is Unbearable To Be Indebted To A Scoundrel.

Ungrateful People

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.

The Appearances Of Goodness And Merit Often Meet With A Greater Reward From The World Than Goodness And Merit Themselves.

If We Did Not Flatter Ourselves, The Flattery Of Others Could Never Harm Us.

What Renders Us So Changeable In Our Friendship Is, That It Is Difficult To Know The Qualities Of The Soul, But Easy To Know Those Of The Mind.

Friendship Is Insipid To Those Who Have Experienced Love.

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

Sincerity Is An Openness Of Heart; We Find It In Very Few People; What We Usually See Is Only An Artful Dissimulation To Win The Confidence Of Others.

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

We Always Like Those Who Admire Us.

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

The Desire Which Urges Us To Deserve Praise Strengthens Our Good Qualities, And Praise Given To Wit, Valour, And Beauty, Tends To Increase Them.

As The Great Ones Of This World Are Unable To Bestow Health Of Body Or Peace Of Mind, We Always Pay Too High A Price For Any Good They Can Do.

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.

We Are Never So Easily Deceived As When We Imagine We Are Deceiving Others.

Deceiving Others

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.

Sincerity Is A Certain Openness Of Heart. It Is To Be Found In Very Few, And What We Commonly Look Upon To Be So Is Only A Cunningsort Of Dissimulation, To Insinuate Ourselves Into The Confidence Of Others.

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example.

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

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

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

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

In The Human Heart One Generation Of Passions Follows Another; From The Ashes Of One Springs The Spark Of The Next.

Everyone Blames His Memory, No One Blames His Judgment.

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.

Our Own Distrust Gives A Fair Pretence For The Knavery Of Other People.

Silence Is The Best Tactic For He Who Distrusts Himself.

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.

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

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

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 Health Of The Soul Is As Precarious As That Of The Body; For When We Seem Secure From Passions, We Are No Less In Danger Of Their Infection Than We Are Of Falling Ill When We Appear To Be Well.

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

It Is A Mistake To Imagine, That The Violent Passions Only, Such As Ambition And Love, Can Triumph Over The Rest. Idleness, Languid As It Is, Often Masters Them All; She Influences All Our Designs And Actions, And Insensibly Consumes And Destroys Both Passions And Virtues.

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

A Refusal Of Praise Is A Desire To Be Praised Twice.

Nothing Hinders A Thing From Being Natural So Much As The Straining Ourselves To Make It Seem So.

Virtues Lose Themselves In Self-interest, As Rivers In The Sea.

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.

Politeness Of The Mind Is To Have Delicate Thoughts

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

Politeness Is A Desire To Be Treated Politely, And To Be Esteemed Polite Oneself.

Jealousy Is Nothing More Than A Fear Of Abandonment

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.]

A Clever Man Reaps Some Benefit From The Worst Catastrophe, And A Fool Can Turn Even Good Luck To His Disadvantage.

When We Seek Reconciliation With Our Enemies, It Is Commonly Out Of A Desire To Better Our Own Condition, A Being Harassed And Tired Out With A State Of War, And A Fear Of Some Ill Accident Which We Are Willing To Prevent.

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

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