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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.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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What We Call Generosity

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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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.

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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.

Sometimes, Occasions Occur In Life Which Demand You To Be A Little Foolish In Order To Skillfully Extricate Yourself.

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

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

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

Intrepidity Is An Extraordinary Strength Of Soul, Which Raises It Above The Troubles, Disorders And Emotions Which The Sight Of Great Perils Can Arouse In It; By This Strength Heroes Maintain A Calm Aspect And Preserve Their Reason And Liberty In The Most Surprising And Terrible Accidents.

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

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

In Love The Deceit Generally Outstrips The Distrust.

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

Luxury And Excessive Refinement Are Sure Forerunners Of The Decadence Of States, Because When All Individuals Seek Their Own Interests They Neglect The Public Weal.

We May Seem Great In An Employment Below Our Worth, But We Very Often Look Little In One That Is Too Big For Us.

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

Jealousy Is Always Born With Love, But Does Not Die With It. In Jealousy There Is More Of Self-love Than Of Love To Another.

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.

Jealousy Lives Upon Doubts. It Becomes Madness Or Ceases Entirely As Soon As We Pass From Doubt To Certainty.

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

The Passions Are The Only Orators That Always Persuade: They Are, As It Were, A Natural Art, The Rules Of Which Are Infallible; And The Simplest Man With Passion Is More Persuasive Than The Most Eloquent Without It.

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

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

That Which Makes The Vanity Of Others Unbearable To Us Is That Which Wounds Our Own.

We Sometimes Think That We Hate Flattery, But We Only Hate The Manner In Which It Is Done. [fr., On Croit Quelquefoir Hair La Flatterie; Maid On Ne Hait Que A Maniere De Flatter.]

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

All Women Are Flirts, But Some Are Restrained By Shyness, And Others By Sense.

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

Our Actions Seem To Have Their Lucky And Unlucky Stars, To Which A Great Part Of That Blame And That Commendation Is Due Which Is Given To The Actions Themselves.

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

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

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

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

Truth Does Not Do As Much Good In The World As Its Imitations Do Harm.

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

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.

Prudence And Love Are Inconsistent; In Proportion As The Last Increases, The Other Decreases.

There Are Many Predicaments In Life That One Must Be A Bit Crazy To Escape From.

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

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

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.

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

There Are More Defects In Temperament Than In The Mind.

All Women Seem By Nature To Be Coquettes.

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

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

Pride Has A Greater Share Than Goodness In The Reproofs We Give Other People For Their Faults; And We Chide Them Not So Much To Make Them Mend Those Faults As To Make Them Believe That We Ourselves Are Without Fault.

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.

There Are No Accidents So Unlucky But The Prudent May Draw Some Advantage From Them.

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

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.

To Know Oneself Is Not Necessarily To Improve Oneself

Knowing Oneself

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

Self-love, As It Happens To Be Well Or Ill Conducted, Constitutes Virtue And Vice.

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

We Often Persuade Ourselves To Love People Who Are More Powerful Than We Are, Yet Interest Alone Produces Our Friendship; We Do Not Give Our Hearts Away For The Good We Wish To Do, But For That We Expect To Receive.

Gratitude Is A Lively Sense Of Benefits To Come.

What Is Perfectly True Is Perfectly Witty.

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

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

If One Judges Love According To The Greatest Part Of The Effects It Produces, It Would Appear To Resemble Rather Hatred Than Kindness.

Envy Is Destroyed By True Friendship, As Coquetry By True Love.

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

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

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

Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own Wit.

A Good Woman Is A Hidden Treasure; Who Discovers Her Will Do Well Not To Boast About It.

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

What Makes False Reckoning, As Regards Gratitude, Is That The Pride Of The Giver And The Receiver Cannot Agree As To The Value Of The Benefit.

Our Enemies Come Nearer The Truth In The Opinions They Form Of Us Than We Do In Our Opinion Of Ourselves.

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

A Man, In Order To Establish Himself In The World, Does Everything He Can To Appear Established There.

We Have Not Enough Strength To Follow All Our Reason.

Considering How Little The Beginning Or The Ceasing To Love Is In Our Own Power, It Is Foolish And Unreasonable For The Lover Or His Mistress To Complain Of One Another's Inconstancy.

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

Falling In Love

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

A Respectable Man May Love Madly, But Not Foolishly.

Hope, Deceitful As It Is, Carries Us Through Life Agreeably Enough.

We Label Judges With Having The Meanest Motives, And Yet We Desire That Our Reputation And Fame Should Depend Upon The Judgment Of Men, Who Are All, Either From Their Jealousy Or Preoccupation Or Want Of Intelligence, Opposed To Us - And Yet Despite Their Bias, Just For The Sake Of Making These Men Decide In Our Favor, We Peril In So Many Ways Both Our Peace And Our Life.

Our Self-love Can Less Bear To Have Our Tastes Than Our Opinions Condemned.

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

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

The Greatest Part Of Intimate Confidences Proceed From A Desire Either To Be Pitied Or Admired.

We Should Wish For Few Things With Eagerness, If We Perfectly Knew The Nature Of That Which Was The Object Of Our Desire.

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

Moderation Is Represented As A Virtue In Order To Restrain The Ambition Of Great Men, And To Console Those Of A Meaner Condition In Their Lesser Merit And Fortune.

Madmen And Fools See Everything Through The Medium Of Humor.

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

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

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

There Are Few Good Women Who Do Not Tire Of Their Role.

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

The Older A Fool Is, The Worse He Is.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Love Of Glory, Fear Of Shame, Greed For Fortune, The Desire To Make Life Agreeable And Comfortable, And The Wish To Depreciate Others - All Of These Are Often The Causes Of The Bravery That Is Spoken So Highly Of By Men.

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

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

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

Humility Is The Altar Upon Which God Wishes That We Should Offer Him His Sacrifices.

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

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

As Great Minds Have The Faculty Of Saying A Great Deal In A Few Words, So Lesser Minds Have A Talent Of Talking Much, And Saying Nothing.

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

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

The Hunger For Applause Is The Source For All Conscious Literature And Heroism

Silence Is The Best Tactic For He Who Distrusts Himself.

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

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

Men Give Away Nothing So Liberally As Their Advice.

However Much We May Distrust Men's Sincerity, We Always Believe They Speak To Us More Sincerely Than To Others.

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example; Never Was There Any Considerable Good Or Ill Done That Does Not Produce Its Like. We Imitate Good Actions Through Emulation, And Had Ones Through A Malignity In Our Nature, Which Shame Conceals, And Example Sets At Liberty.

Cunning And Treachery Are The Offspring Of Incapacity.

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

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.

When A Man Must Force Himself To Be Faithful In His Love, This Is Hardly Better Than Unfaithfulness.

Conceit Causes More Conversation Than Wit.

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

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

A Wise Man Should Order His Interests, And Set Them All In Their Proper Places. This Order Is Often Troubled By Greed, Which Putsus Upon Pursuing So Many Things At Once That, In Eagerness For Matters Of Less Consideration, We Grasp At Trifles, And Let Go Things Of Greater Value.

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

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

Self Improvement

Even Women Are Perfect At The Outset.

We Often Pay Our Debts Not Because It Is Only Fair That We Should, But To Make Future Loans Easier.

He Is Safe Who Admits No One To His Confidence.

Gratitude Is Merely The Secret Hope Of Further Favors.

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

The Moderation Of People In Prosperity Is The Effect Of A Smooth And Composed Temper, Owing To The Calm Of Their Good Fortune.

The Smallest Fault Of Women Who Give Themselves Up To Love Is To Love.

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

We Are More Interested In Making Others Believe We Are Happy Than In Trying To Be Happy Ourselves.

Make Others Happy

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

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

There Are Some People Who Would Never Have Fallen In Love If They Had Not Heard There Was Such A Thing.

We Should Often Feel Ashamed Of Our Best Actions If The World Could See All The Motives Which Produced Them.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Novelty Is To Love Like Bloom To Fruit; It Gives A Luster Which Is Easily Effaced, But Never Returns.

One Man May Be More Cunning Than Another, But No One Can Be More Cunning Than All The World.

We Endeavor To Make A Virtue Of The Faults We Are Unwilling To Correct.

The Ambitious Deceive Themselves In Proposing An End To Their Ambition; That End, When Attained, Becomes A Means.

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

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

Few Men Know All The Ill They Do.

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

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.

Fortune And Humor Govern The World.

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

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

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

The Best Way To Rise In Society Is To Use All Possible Means Of Persuading People That One Has Already Risen In Society.

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.

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

Organize One's Values In The Order Of Their Worth

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

We Often Act Treacherously More From Weakness Than From A Fixed Motive.

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.

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

Gratitude Is Like Credit; It Is The Backbone Of Our Relations; Frequently We Pay Our Debts Not Because Equity Demands That We Should, But To Facilitate Future Loans.

Only The Great Can Afford To Have Great Defects.

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

Οur Own Distrust Somewhat Justifies The Deceit Of Others.

We Should Scarcely Desire Things Ardently If We Were Perfectly Acquainted With What We Desire.

Women Know Not The Whole Of Their Coquetry.

The Only Good Copies Are Those Which Make Us See The Absurdity Of Bad Originals.

The World Is Full Of Pots Jeering At Kettles.

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.

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

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

The Reason That Lovers Never Weary Each Other Is Because They Are Always Talking About Themselves.

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.

Not All Those Who Know Their Minds Know Their Hearts As Well.

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

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

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

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

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.

Jealousy Contains More Of Self-love Than Of Love.

True Eloquence Consists In Saying All That Should Be Said, And That Only.

There Is Such A Thing As A General Revolution Which Changes The Taste Of Men As It Changes The Fortunes Of The World.

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

Extraordinary Moments

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

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

Everyone Takes Pleasure In Returning Small Obligations, Many People Acknowledge Moderate Ones; But There Are Only A Scarce Few Who Do Not Pay Great Ones With Ingratitude.

A Man Often Imagines That He Acts, When He Is Acted Upon.

Our Good Qualities Expose Us More To Hatred And Persecution Than All The Ill We Do.

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

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