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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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Things Often Offer Themselves

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

It Is As Easy To Deceive One's Self Without Perceiving It, As It Is Difficult To Deceive Others Without Their Finding Out.

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

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

Hypocrisy Is The Homage Vice Pays To Virtue.

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.

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

Even The Most Disinterested Love Is, After All, But A Kind Of Bargain, In Which Self-love Always Proposes To Be The Gainer One Wayor Another.

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.

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.

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

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

There Is A Sort Of Love Whose Very Excessiveness Prevents The Lover's Being Jealous.

The Tranquility Or Agitation Of Our Temper Does Not Depend So Much On The Big Things Which Happen To Us In Life, As On The Pleasant Or Unpleasant Arrangements Of The Little Things Which Happen Daily.

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

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

We Are So Used To Dissembling With Others That In Time We Come To Deceive And Dissemble With Ourselves.

It Is Sometimes Necessary To Play The Fool To Avoid Being Deceived By Cunning Men.

Fearlessness Is A More Than Ordinary Strength Of Mind, Which Raises The Soul Above The Troubles, Disorders, And Emotions Which Theprospect Of Great Dangers Are Used To Produce. And By This Inward Strength It Is That Heroes Preserve Themselves In A Calm And Quiet State, And Enjoy A Presence Of Mind And The Free Use Of Their Reason In The Midst Of Those Terrible Accidents That Amaze And Confound Other People.

Presence Of Mind

The Most Effectual Way To Be Deceived Is To Believe Oneself More Cunning Than One's Neighbors.

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.

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

It Is As Easy To Unknowingly Deceive Yourself As It Is To Deceive Others.

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.

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.

Friendship Is Insipid To Those Who Have Experienced Love.

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

Second-rate Minds Usually Condemn Everything Beyond Their Grasp.

Positive Thinking

History Never Embraces More Than A Small Part Of Reality

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.

Beautiful Coquettes Are Quacks Of Love.

The Reason Why Lovers Are Never Bored Together Is That They Are Always Talking Of Themselves.

Loyalty Is In Most People Only A Ruse Used By Self-interest To Attract Confidence.

The Virtues And Vices Are All Put In Motion By Interest.

Love's Greatest Miracle Is The Curing Of Coquetry.

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

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

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.

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

We Are Lazier In Our Minds Than In Our Bodies.

It Is Easier For A Man To Be Thought Fit For An Employment That He Has Not, Than For One He Stands Already Possessed Of, And Is Exercising.

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

Nothing Prevents One From Appearing Natural As The Desire To Appear Natural.

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

We Should Gain More By Letting The World See What We Are Than By Trying To Seem What We Are Not.

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

The Passions Are The Only Orators Which Always Persuade.

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

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

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.

The Moderation Of Men In The Most Exalted Fortunes Is A Desire To Be Thought Above Those Things That Have Raised Them So High.

Sometimes A Fool Has Talent, But Never Judgment.

One Honor Won Is A Surety For More.

Timidity Is A Fault For Which It Is Dangerous To Reprove Persons Whom We Wish To Correct Of It.

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

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

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example.

Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own Wit.

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 Mind Cannot Long Play The Heart's Role.

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.

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

A Man Of Understanding Finds Less Difficulty In Submitting To A Wrong-headed Fellow, Than In Attempting To Set Him Right.

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

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

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.

All Women Seem By Nature To Be Coquettes.

No Man Can Love A Second Time The Person Whom He Has Once Truly Ceased To Love.

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

There Are More Defects In Temperament Than In The Mind.

Perfect Courage And Utter Cowardice Are Two Extremes Which Rarely Occur.

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

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

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

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

We Often In Our Misfortunes Take That For Constancy And Patience Which Is Only Dejection Of Mind; We Suffer Without Daring To Holdup Our Heads, Just As Cowards Let Themselves Be Knocked On The Head Because They Have Not Courage To Strike Back.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Most Ingenious Men Continually Pretend To Condemn Tricking--but This Is Often Done That They May Use It More Conveniently Themselves, When Some Great Occasion Or Interest Offers Itself To Them.

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

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

Fancy Sets The Value On The Gifts Of Fortune.

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

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.

The Moderation Of Fortunate People Comes From The Calm Which Good Fortune Gives To Their Tempers.

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

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

The Only Security Is Courage.

The Most Subtle Of Our Acts Is To Simulate Blindness For Snares That We Know Are Set For Us.

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.

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

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

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

The Intellect Of The Generality Of Women Serves More To Fortify Their Folly Than Their Reason.

The Height Of Ability In The Least Able Consists In Knowing How To Submit To The Good Leadership Of Others.

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.

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

Female Gossips Are Generally Actuated By Active Ignorance.

We Are Always Bored By The Very People By Whom It Is Vital Not To Be Bored.

Eloquence: Saying The Proper Thing And Stopping.

We Seldom Find People Ungrateful So Long As It Is Thought We Can Serve Them.

Ungrateful People

Neither The Sun Nor Death Can Be Looked At Steadily.

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

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

Preserving The Serious Health Condition Is Usually Painful.

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

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

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

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

If One Acts Rightly And Honestly, It Is Difficult To Decide Whether It Is The Effect Of Integrity Or Skill.

Coquetry Is The Essential Characteristic, And The Prevalent Humor Of Women; But They Do Not All Practice It, Because The Coquetry Of Some Is Restrained By Fear Or By Reason.

We Are Never So Happy, Nor So Unhappy, As We Suppose Ourselves To Be.

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

The Defects Of The Mind, Like Those Of The Face, Grow Worse With Age.

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

Usually We Praise Only To Be Praised.

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

It Requires No Small Degree Of Ability To Know When To Conceal One's Ability.

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.

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

Love Is To The Soul Of Him Who Loves, What The Soul Is To The Body Which It Animates.

Weakness Is More Opposed To Virtue Than Is Vice.

We Acknowledge Our Faults In Order To Repair By Our Sincerity The Damage They Have Done Us In The Eyes Of Others.

We Have More Indolence In The Mind Than In The Body.

None But The Contemptible Are Apprehensive Of Contempt.

To Achieve Greatness One Should Live As If They Will Never Die.

The Reason Why Lovers And Their Mistresses Never Tire Of Being Together Is That They Are Always Talking Of Themselves. [fr., Ce Qui Fait Que Amants Et Les Maitresses Ne S'ennuient Point D'etre Ensemble; C'est Qu'ils Parlent Toujours D'eux Memes.]

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

Self Discipline

The Head Does Not Know How To Play The Part Of The Heart For Long.

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

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

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

Bodily Labor Alleviates The Pains Of The Mind And From This Arises The Happiness Of The Poor

The Good Or The Bad Fortune Of Men Depends Not Less Upon Their Own Dispositions Than Upon Fortune.

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

It Is With Certain Good Qualities As With The Senses; Those Who Have Them Not Can Neither Appreciate Nor Comprehend Them In Others.

The Heart Of Man Ever Finds A Constant Succession Of Passions, So That The Destroying And Pulling Down Of One Proves Generally Tobe Nothing Else But The Production And The Setting Up Of Another.

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

There Are Follies As Catching As Contagious Disorders.

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

Only The Contemptible Fear Contempt.

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

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

It Is Much Better To Learn To Deal With The Ills We Have Now Than To Speculate On Those That May Befall Us.

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

As We Grow Older, We Increase In Folly--and In Wisdom.

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

The Heart Is Forever Making The Head Its Fool.

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

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

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

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

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.

If There Be A Love Pure And Free From The Admixture Of Our Other Passions, It Is That Which Lies Hidden In The Bottom Of Our Heart, And Which We Know Not Ourselves.

What Often Prevents Our Abandoning Ourselves To A Single Vice Is, Our Having More Than One.

Most People Judge Men By Their Success Or Their Good Fortune.

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.

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

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

To Safeguard One's Health At The Cost Of Too Strict A Diet Is A Tiresome Illness, Indeed.

Those That Have Had Great Passions Esteem Themselves For The Rest Of Their Lives Fortunate And Unfortunate In Being Cured Of Them.

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.

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

Those Who Have The Most Cunning Affect All Their Lives To Condemn Cunning; That They May Make Use Of It On Some Great Occasion, And To Some Great End.

Our Aversion To Lying Is Commonly A Secret Ambition To Make What We Say Considerable, And Have Every Word Received With A Religious Respect.

There Is Real Love Just As There Are Real Ghosts; Every Person Speaks Of It, Few Persons Have Seen It.

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

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.

There Is Something To Be Said For Jealousy, Because It Only Designs The Preservation Of Some Good Which We Either Have Or Think Wehave A Right To. But Envy Is A Raging Madness That Cannot Bear The Wealth Or Fortune Of Others.

Self-love Increases Or Diminishes For Us The Good Qualities Of Our Friends, In Proportion To The Satisfaction We Feel With Them; And We Judge Of Their Merit By The Manner In Which They Act Towards Us.

High Fortune Makes Both Our Virtues And Vices Stand Out As Objects That Are Brought Clearly To View By The Light.

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

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

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.]

In Misfortune We Often Mistake Dejection For Constancy; We Bear It Without Daring To Look On It; Like Cowards, Who Suffer Themselves To Be Murdered Without Resistance.

The Older A Fool Is, The Worse He Is.

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.]

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.

It Is Sometimes A Point Of As Much Cleverness To Know To Make Good Use Of Advice From Others As To Be Able Give Good Advice To Oneself.

Many Young Persons Believe Themselves Natural When They Are Only Impolite And Coarse.

Humility Is Often A False Front We Employ To Gain Power Over Others.

Power Over Others

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.

The Truest Mark Of Being Born With Great Qualities Is To Be Born Without Envy.

Women's Virtue Is Frequently Nothing But A Regard To Their Own Quiet And A Tenderness For Their Reputation.

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

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

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

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.

Satire Is At Once The Most Agreeable And Most Dangerous Of Mental Qualities. It Always Pleases When It Is Refined, But We Always Fear Those Who Use It Too Much; Yet Satire Should Be Allowed When Unmixed With Spite, And When The Person Satirized Can Join In The Satire.

The Only Thing That Should Surprise Us Is That There Are Still Some Things That Can Surprise Us.

Perfect Courage Is To Do Without Witnesses What One Would Be Capable Of Doing With The World Looking On.

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

Those Whom The World Has Delighted To Honor Have Oftener Been Influenced In Their Doings By Ambition And Vanity Than By Patriotism.

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

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

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

Innocence Is Lucky If It Finds The Same Protection As Guilt

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

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