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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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What Men Have Called

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Nothing Is Rarer Than Real Goodness.

Weakness Is The Only Fault That Is Incorrigible.

The Common Foible Of Women Who Have Been Handsome Is To Forget That They Are No Longer So.

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.

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.

As Love Increases, Prudence Diminishes.

Some Follies Are Caught, Like Contagious Diseases.

There Are Some Who Never Would Have Loved If They Never Had Heard It Spoken Of.

A Great Many Men's Gratitude Is Nothing But A Secret Desire To Hook In More Valuable Kindnesses Hereafter.

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.

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

Falling In Love

There Are Good Marriages, But There Are No Delightful Ones.

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

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

All Women Seem By Nature To Be Coquettes.

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

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

Beautiful Coquettes Are Quacks Of Love.

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

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

Politeness Of The Mind Is To Have Delicate Thoughts

It Is Almost Always A Fault Of One Who Loves Not To Realize When He Ceases To Be Loved.

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

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

We Can Never Be Certain Of Our Courage Until We Have Faced Danger.

Gratitude Is Like The Good Faith Of Traders: It Maintains Commerce, And We Often Pay, Not Because It Is Just To Discharge Our Debts, But That We May More Readily Find People To Trust Us.

It Is A Great Act Of Cleverness To Be Able To Conceal One's Being Clever.

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

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

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.

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

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

There Are More Defects In Temperament Than In The Mind.

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.

In Friendship, As In Love, We Are Often More Happy From The Things We Are Ignorant Of Than From Those We Are Acquainted With.

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

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

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

Neither Love Nor Fire Can Subsist Without Perpetual Motion; Both Cease To Live So Soon As They Cease To Hope, Or To Fear.

Perpetual Motion

Our Wisdom Lies As Much At The Mercy Of Fortune As Our Possessions Do.

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

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

Men Are Not Only Prone To Forget Benefits; They Even Hate Those Who Have Obliged Them, And Cease To Hate Those Who Have Injured Them. The Necessity Of Revenging An Injury, Or Of Recompensing A Benefit Seems A Slavery To Which They Are Unwilling To Submit.

It Is Easier To Understand Mankind In General Than Any Individual Man.

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.

Men Never Desire Anything Very Eagerly Which They Desire Only By The Dictates Of Reason.

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

There Are Few People Who Would Not Be Ashamed Of Being Loved When They Love No Longer.

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

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

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

What Is Called Generosity Is Usually Only The Vanity Of Giving; We Enjoy The Vanity More Than The Thing Given.

Some Disguised Deceits Counterfeit Truth So Perfectly That Not To Be Taken In By Them Would Be An Error Of Judgment.

Behind Many Acts That Are Thought Ridiculous There Lie Wise And Weighty Motives.

Women Know Not The Whole Of Their Coquetry.

Some Beautiful Things Are More Dazzling When They Are Still Imperfect Than When They Have Been Too Perfectly Crafted.

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.

Nothing Is So Catching As Example.

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

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

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

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

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

Our Distrust Of Another Justifies His Deceit.

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

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

The Old Begin To Complain Of The Conduct Of The Young When They Themselves Are No Longer Able To Set A Bad Example.

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.

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

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

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

Death And The Sun Are Not To Be Looked At Steadily.

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

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

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

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

Envy Is More Irreconcilable Than Hatred.

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

Humility Is The Sure Evidence Of Christian Virtues. Without It, We Retain All Our Faults Still, And They Are Only Covered Over With Pride, Which Hides Them From Other Men's Observation, And Sometimes From Our Own Too.

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.

Why Is It That Our Memory Is Good Enough To Retain The Least Triviality That Happens To Us, And Yet Not Good Enough To Recollect How Often We Have Told It To The Same Person?

Not Good Enough

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

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

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

Politeness Of Mind Consists In Thinking Chaste And Refined Thoughts.

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.

There Are Heroes In Evil As Well As In Good.

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

The Vices Enter Into The Composition Of The Virtues, As Poisons Into That Of Medicines. Prudence Collects And Arranges Them, And Uses Them Beneficially Against The Ills Of Life.

That Conduct Often Seems Ridiculous The Secret Reasons Of Which Are Wise And Solid.

What Renders Other People's Vanity Insufferable Is That It Wounds Our Own.

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

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

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 Take Less Pains To Be Happy, Than To Appear So.

It's Easier To Know People In General Than One Person In Particular

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

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.

Taste May Change, But Inclination Never.

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example.

A Man's Worth Has Its Season, Like Fruit.

He That Fancies Such A Sufficiency In Himself That He Can Live Without All The World Is Greatly Mistaken; But He That Imagines Himself So Necessary That Other People Cannot Live Without Him Is A Great Deal More Mistaken.

Women Do Not Know All Their Powers Of Flirtation.

One Is Never Fortunate Or As Unfortunate As One Imagines.

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

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

We Exaggerate The Glory Of Some Men In Order To Detract From That Of Others.

Passion Often Makes A Fool Of The Cleverest Man And Often Makes The Most Foolish Men Clever

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

Too Great Cleverness Is But Deceptive Delicacy, True Delicacy Is The Most Substantial Cleverness.

The Gratitude Of Most Men Is But A Secret Desire Of Receiving Greater Benefits.

Boredom ... Causes Us To Neglect More Duties Than Does Interest.

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.

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

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.

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.

It Is Safer To Do Most Men Harm Than To Do Them Too Much Good.

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.

One Honor Won Is A Surety For More.

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

What We Take For High-mindedness Is Very Often No Other Than Ambition Well Disguised, That Scorns Means Interests, Only To Pursuegreater.

The Violence Done Us By Others Is Often Less Painful Than That Which We Do To Ourselves.

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.

The Desire Of Talking Of Ourselves, And Showing Those Faults We Do Not Mind Having Seen, Makes Up A Good Part Of Our Sincerity.

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

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

Youth Is A Continual Intoxication; It Is The Fever Of Reason.

No Persons Are More Frequently Wrong, Than Those Who Will Not Admit They Are Wrong.

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

Passion Often Makes Fools Of The Wisest Men And Gives The Silliest Wisdom.

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

We Arrive At The Various Stages Of Life Quite As Novices.

None But Great Men Are Capable Of Having Great Flaws.

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

Consolation For Unhappiness Can Often Be Found In A Certain Satisfaction We Get From Looking Unhappy.

Renewed Friendships Require More Care Than Those That Have Never Been Broken.

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

Moderation Is Caused By The Fear Of Exciting The Envy And Contempt Which Those Merit Who Are Intoxicated With Their Good Fortune; It Is A Vain Display Of Our Strength Of Mind, And In Short The Moderation Of Men At Their Greatest Height Is Only A Desire To Appear Greater Than Their Fortune.

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

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

The Greatest Part Of Our Faults Are More Excusable Than The Methods That Are Commonly Taken To Conceal Them.

Weakness Is More Opposed To Virtue Than Is Vice.

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

The Gallantry Of The Mind Consists In Agreeable Flattery.

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

A Man Does Not Please Long When He Has Only Species Of Wit.

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

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

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

The Mind Is Always The Patsy Of The Heart.

I Always Say To Myself, What Is The Most Important Thing We Can Think About At This Extraordinary Moment.

Extraordinary Moments

There Is No Praise We Have Not Lavished Upon Prudence; And Yet She Cannot Assure To Us The Most Trifling Event.

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.

Jealousy Is The Greatest Of All Evils, And The One That Arouses The Least Pity In The Person Who Causes It.

Gracefulness Is To The Body What Understanding Is To The Mind.

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.

Love Is The Smallest Part Of Gallantry.

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.

We Never Desire Strongly, What We Desire Rationally.

Almost Everyone Takes Pleasure In Repaying Trifling Obligations, Very Many Feel Gratitude For Those That Are Moderate; But There Is Scarcely Anyone Who Is Not Ungrateful For Those That Are Weighty.

We Are Eager To Believe That Others Are Flawed Because We Are Eager To Believe In What We Wish For.

There Are Crimes Which Become Innocent And Even Glorious Through Their Splendor, Number And Excess.

Hatred Is Stronger Than Friendship.

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

Fortune And Humor Govern The World.

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

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

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

We Are Sometimes As Different From Ourselves As We Are From Others.

Self Improvement

Moderation In People Who Are Contented Comes From That Calm That Good Fortune Lends To Their Spirit.

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

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

Love Often Leads On To Ambition, But Seldom Does One Return From Ambition To Love.

Weak People Cannot Be Sincere.

The Greatest Fault Of A Penetrating Wit Is To Go Beyond The Mark.

It Is Not Enough That We Should Succeed, But Our Friends Must Fail As Well.

We Forgive Just So Long As We Love.

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.

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

Ungrateful People

Men More Easily Renounce Their Interests Than Their Tastes.

Repentance Is Not So Much Remorse For What We Have Done As The Fear Of The Consequences.

Self-love Is The Greatest Of All Flatterers.

Honest People Will Respect Us For Our Merit: The Public, For Our Luck.

There Are Some Faults Which, When Well Managed, Make A Greater Figure Than Virtue Itself.

There Are Very Few Things Impossible In Themselves; And We Do Not Want Means To Conquer Difficulties So Much As Application And Resolution In The Use Of Means.

It Is As Commendable To Think Well Of Oneself When Alone, As It Is Ridiculous To Speak Well Of Oneself Among Others.

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

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.

The Intellect Is Always Fooled By The Heart.

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.

The Pleasure Of Love Is In The Loving; And There Is More Joy In The Passion One Feels Than In That Which One Inspires.

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

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

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.

We Own Up To Minor Failings, But Only So As To Convince Others That We Have No Major Ones.

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

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.

If You Cannot Find Peace In Yourself, It Is Useless To Look For It Elsewhere.

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