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What Makes Us So Bitter Against People Who Outwit Us Is That They Think Themselves Cleverer Than We Are.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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What Makes Us So

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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What Makes Us So Bitter Against People Who Outwit Us Is That They Think Themselves Cleverer Than We Are.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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.

Great Souls Are Not Those Who Have Fewer Passions And More Virtues Than Others, But Only Those Who Have Greater Designs.

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

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.

One Thing Which Makes Us Find So Few People Who Appear Reasonable And Agreeable In Conversation Is, That There Is Scarcely Any One Who Does Not Think More Of What He Is About To Say Than Of Answering Precisely What Is Said To Him.

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

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

Only The Great Can Afford To Have Great Defects.

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.

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

Jealousy Is In Some Measure Just And Reasonable, Since It Merely Aims At Keeping Something That Belongs To Us Or We Think Belongsto Us, Whereas Envy Is A Frenzy That Cannot Bear Anything That Belongs To Others.

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

None But Great Men Are Capable Of Having Great Flaws.

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

If We Are To Judge Of Love By Its Consequences, It More Nearly Resembles Hatred Than Friendship.

Tis A Sort Of Coquetry To Boast That We Never Coquet.

Our Distrust Of Another Justifies His Deceit.

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

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.

The Better Part Of One's Life Consists Of His Friendships. Abraham Lincoln, Letter To Joseph Gillespie, July 13, 1849 Friendship Is Insipid To Those Who Have Experienced Love.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Only Good Imitations Are Those That Poke Fun At Bad Originals.

To Praise Great Actions Is In Some Sense To Share Them.

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

Few Know How To Be Old.

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.

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

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

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

Very Few People Are Acquainted With Death. They Undergo It, Commonly, Not So Much Out Of Resolution As Custom And Insensitivity; And Most Men Die Because They Cannot Help It.

We Get So Much In The Habit Of Wearing Disguises Before Others That We Finally Appear Disguised Before Ourselves.

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

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

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

Interest Blinds Some People, And Enlightens Others.

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.

Jealousy Is Not So Much The Love Of Another As The Love Of Ourselves.

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

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

Propriety Is The Least Of All Laws, And The Most Observed.

The Passions Of Youth Are Not More Dangerous To Health Than Is The Lukewarmness Of Old Age.

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.

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.

Though Men Are Apt To Flatter And Exalt Themselves With Their Great Achievements, Yet These Are, In Truth, Very Often Owing Not So Much To Design As Chance.

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

It Is Pointless For A Woman To Be Young Unless Pretty, Or To Be Pretty Unless Young.

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

When You Plant A Seed Of Love, It Is You That Blossoms. Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom From The Patterns That Bind You There Are Two Kinds Of Faithfulness In Love: One Is Based On Forever Finding New Things To Love In The Loved One; The Other Is Based On Our Pride In Being Faithful.

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

Truth Does Less Good In The World Than Its Appearances Do Harm.

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

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

A Man May Be Sharper Than Another, But Not Than All Others.

We May Sooner Be Brought To Love Them That Hate Us, Than Them That Love Us More Than We Would Have Them Do.

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

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

Our Envy Always Outlives The Felicity Of Its Object.

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

Men And Things Have Each Their Proper Perspective; To Judge Rightly Of Some It Is Necessary To See Them Near, Of Others We Can Never Judge Rightly But At A Distance.

We Rarely Ever Perceive Others As Being Sensible, Except For Those Who Agree With Us.

The Desire To Seem Clever Often Keeps Us From Being So.

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.

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

A Man Convinced Of His Own Merit Will Accept Misfortune As An Honor, For Thus Can He Persuade Others, As Well As Himself, That He Is A Worthy Target For The Arrows Of Fate.

Humility Is Often Only The Putting On Of A Submissiveness By Which Men Hope To Bring Other People To Submit To Them; It Is A Morecalculated Sort Of Pride, Which Debases Itself With A Design Of Being Exalted; And Though This Vice Transform Itself Into A Thousand Several Shapes, Yet The Disguise Is Never More Effectual Nor More Capable Of Deceiving The World Than When Concealed Under A Form Of Humility.

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

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.

The Intention Of Never Deceiving Often Exposes Us To Deception.

Few Men Know All The Ill They Do.

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

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example.

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.

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.

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

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

The Intellect Is Always Fooled By The Heart.

Politeness Of The Mind Is To Have Delicate Thoughts

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.

Affected Simplicity Is An Elegant Imposture.

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

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

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

The Grace Of Novelty And The Length Of Habit, Though So Very Opposite To One Another, Yet Agree In This, That They Both Alike Keepus From Discovering The Faults Of Our Friends.

Some Reproaches Praise; Some Praises Reproach.

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

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

Friendship Is Insipid To Those Who Have Experienced Love.

In The Presence Of Some People We Inevitably Depart From Ourselves: We Are Inaccurate, We Say Things We Do Not Feel, And Talk Nonsense. When We Get Home We Are Conscious That We Have Made Fools Of Ourselves. Never Go Near These People.

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

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

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.

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

We Are More Often Treacherous Through Weakness Than Through Calculation.

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

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

True Friendship Destroys Envy, And True Love Destroys Coquetterie.

Whatever Pretended Causes We May Blame Our Afflictions Upon, It Is Often Nothing But Self-interest And Vanity That Produce Them.

There Are Women Who Never Had An Intrigue; But There Are Scarce Any Who Never Had But One.

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

Preserving The Serious Health Condition Is Usually Painful.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Small Minds Are Much Distressed By Little Things. Great Minds See Them All But Are Not Upset By Them.

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

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

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

Perfect Valor Is To Do, Without A Witness, All That We Could Do Before The Whole World.

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.

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

Man Only Blames Himself In Order That He May Be Praised.

Love, All Agreeable As It Is, Charms More By The Fashion In Which It Displays Itself, Than By Its Own True Merit.

We Say Little, When Vanity Does Not Make Us Speak.

In Infants, Levity Is A Prettiness; In Men A Shameful Defect; But In Old Age, A Monstrous Folly.

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

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

Nature Makes Merit, And Fortune Puts It To Work.

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

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

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

Constancy In Love Is A Perpetual Inconstancy Which Fixes Our Hearts Successively To All The Qualities Of The Person Loved--sometimes Admiring One And Sometimes Another Above All The Rest--so That This Constancy Roves As Far As It Can, And Is No Better Than Inconstancy, Confined Within The Compass Of One Person.

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

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.

The Reason We Bitterly Hate Those Who Deceive Us Is Because They Think They Are Cleverer Than We Are.

It Is Easier To Rule Others Than To Keep From Being Ruled Oneself.

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

Treachery Is More Often The Effect Of Weakness Than Of A Formed Design.

No Man Is Clever Enough To Know All The Evil He Does.

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

Understanding Others

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.

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

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

All Women Seem By Nature To Be Coquettes.

It Is As Common For Tastes To Change As It Is Uncommon For Traits Of Character.

Every One Complains Of A Poor Memory, No One Of A Weak Judgment.

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

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

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

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

Perfect Behavior Is Born Of Complete Indifference.

No Fools Are So Difficult To Manage As Those With Some Brains.

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

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

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

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

Ungrateful People

None Deserve Praise For Being Good Who Have Not The Spirit To Be Bad: Goodness, For The Most Part, Is Nothing But Indolence Or Weakness Of Will.

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.

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 A Species Of Coquetry To Make A Parade Of Never Practising It.

Vices Are Ingredients Of Virtues Just As Poisons Are Ingredients Of Remedies. Prudence Mixes And Tempers Them And Uses Them Effectively Against Life's Ills.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

It Is Often Laziness And Timidity That Keep Us Within Our Duty While Virtue Gets All The Credit.

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

It Seems That Nature, Which Has So Wisely Disposed Our Bodily Organs With A View To Our Happiness, Has Also Bestowed On Us Pride, To Spare Us The Pain Of Being Aware Of Our Imperfections.

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

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.

Fortune Never Appears So Blind As To Those To Whom She Does No Good.

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

We Have Not Strength Enough To Follow Our Reason So Far As It Would Carry Us.

Neither The Sun Nor Death Can Be Looked At Steadily.

Men Sometimes Think They Hate Flattery, But They Hate Only The Manner Of Flattering.

However Evil Men May Be They Dare Not Be Openly Hostile To Virtue, And So When They Want To Attack It They Pretend To Find It Spurious , Or Impute Crimes To It.

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

Few Things Are Impracticable In Themselves; And It Is For Want Of Application, Rather Than Of Means, That Men Fail To Succeed.

We Forgive Just So Long As We Love.

Humility Is Often Merely Feigned Submissiveness Assumed In Order To Subject Others, An Artifice Of Pride Which Stoops To Conquer, And Although Pride Has A Thousand Ways Of Transforming Itself It Is Never So Well Disguised And Able To Take People In As When Masquerading As Humility.

Nothing Is Given So Profusely As Advice.

Hypocrisy Is The Homage Vice Pays To Virtue.

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

Service Culture

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

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

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

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

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

Some Follies Are Caught, Like Contagious Diseases.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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