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What We Take For Virtue Is Often Nothing But An Assemblage Of Different Actions, And Of Different Interests, That Fortune Or Our Industry Knows How To Arrange.

-Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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What We Take For

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

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What We Take For Virtue Is Often Nothing But An Assemblage Of Different Actions, And Of Different Interests, That Fortune Or Our Industry Knows How To Arrange.

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More From Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Philosophy Finds It An Easy Matter To Vanquish Past And Future Evils, But The Present Are Commonly Too Hard For It.

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

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.

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

The Person Giving The Advice Returns The Confidence Placed In Him With A Disinterested Eagerness... And He Is Usually Guided Only By His Own Interest Or Reputation.

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

Spiritual Health Is No More Stable Than Bodily; And Though We May Seem Unaffected By The Passions We Are Just As Liable To Be Carried Away By Them As To Fall Ill When In Good Health.

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.

Women Find It Far More Difficult To Overcome Their Inclination To Coquetry Than To Overcome Their Love.

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.

There Is Only One Kind Of Love, But There Are A Thousand Imitations.

Love Can No More Continue Without A Constant Motion Than Fire Can; And When Once You Take Hope And Fear Away, You Take From It Its Very Life And Being.

Wit Sometimes Enables Us To Act Rudely With Impunity.

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.

Hypocrisy Is The Homage Vice Pays To Virtue.

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.

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

Confidence Always Pleases Those Who Receive It. It Is A Tribute We Pay To Their Merit, A Deposit We Commit To Their Trust, A Pledge That Gives Them A Claim Upon Us, A Kind Of Dependence To Which We Voluntarily Submit.

A Small Degree Of Wit, Accompanied By Good Sense, Is Less Tiresome In The Long Run Than A Great Amount Of Wit Without It.

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

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

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.

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.

Οur Own Distrust Somewhat Justifies The Deceit Of Others.

The Measure Of Great Men Should Always Be Measured By The Means They Have Used To Acquire It.

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

Generosity Is The Vanity Of Giving.

Too Great Refinement Is False Delicacy, And True Delicacy Is Solid Refinement.

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

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example; And We Never Do Any Great Good Or Evil Which Does Not Produce Its Like.

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

Jealousy Is Nothing More Than A Fear Of Abandonment

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.

Old People Love To Give Good Advice; It Compensates Them For Their Inability To Set A Bad Example.

Inability To Love

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

We Forgive Just So Long As We Love.

Most Of Our Faults Are More Pardonable Than The Means We Use To Conceal Them.

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

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

Happiness Does Not Consist In Things Themselves But In The Relish We Have Of Them; And A Man Has Attained It When He Enjoys What He Loves And Desires Himself, And Not What Other People Think Lovely And Desirable.

Some Men Are So Full Of Themselves That When They Fall In Love, They Amuse Themselves Rather With Their Own Passion Than With Theperson They Love.

Affected Simplicity Is A Subtle Imposture.

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

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

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.

When Fortune Surprises Us By Giving Us Some Great Office Without Having Gradually Led Us To Expect It, Or Without Having Raised Our Hopes, It Is Well Nigh Impossible To Occupy It Well, And To Appear Worthy To Fill It.

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

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

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

To Establish Yourself In The World A Person Must Do All They Can To Appear Already Established.

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

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

There Is A Kind Of Elevation Which Does Not Depend On Fortune; It Is A Certain Air Which Distinguishes Us, And Seems To Destine Us For Great Things; It Is A Price Which We Imperceptibly Set Upon Ourselves.

Great And Glorious Events Which Dazzle The Beholder Are Represented By Politicians As The Outcome Of Grand Designs Whereas They Are Usually Products Of Temperaments And Passions.

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.

Hypocrisy Is An Homage That Vice Renders To Virtue.

The Heat Of Youth Is Not More Opposed To Safety Than The Coldness Of Age.

Whatever Discoveries We May Have Made In The Regions Of Self-love, There Still Remain Many Unknown Lands.

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

Old Age Is A Tyrant, Who Forbids, Under Pain Of Death, The Pleasures Of Youth.

In The Human Heart New Passions Are Forever Being Born; The Overthrow Of One Almost Always Means The Rise Of Another.

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

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

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

Penetration Has An Air Of Divination; It Pleases Our Vanity More Than Any Other Quality Of The Mind.

Familiarity Is A Suspension Of Almost All The Laws Of Civility, Which Libertinism Has Introduced Into Society Under The Notion Of Ease.

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

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

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

Reconciliation With Our Enemies Is Simply A Desire To Better Our Condition, A Weariness Of War, Or The Fear Of Some Unlucky Thing From Occurring.

People Would Not Long Remain In Social Life If They Were Not The Dupes Of Each Other.

He Is A Truly Virtuous Man Who Wishes Always To Be Open To The Observation Of Honest Men.

All Who Know Their Own Minds Know Not Their Own Hearts.

Imagination Does Not Enable Us To Invent As Many Different Contradictions As There Are By Nature In Every Heart.

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.

Nothing Is So Contagious As Example.

The Happiness And Unhappiness Of Men Depends As Much On Their Ethics As On Fortune.

Fortune Turns All Things To The Advantage Of Those On Whom She Smiles.

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

We Speak Little If Not Egged On By Vanity.

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

Avarice Is More Opposite To Economy Than Liberality.

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 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.]

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

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

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

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

In Their Early Passions Women Are In Love With The Lover, Later They Are In Love With Love.

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

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

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

The Passions Often Engender Their Contraries.

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

Deceiving Others

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

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.

It Is Only Persons Of Firmness That Can Have Real Gentleness. Those Who Appear Gentle Are, In General, Only A Weak Character, Which Easily Changes Into Asperity.

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

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

Though Most Of The Friendships Of The World Ill Deserve The Name Of Friendships; Yet A Man May Make Use Of Them On Occasion, As Of A Traffic Whose Returns Are Uncertain, And In Which 'tis Usual To Be Cheated.

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.

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.

People That Are Conceited Of Their Own Merit Take Pride In Being Unfortunate, That Themselves And Others May Think Them Considerable Enough To Be The Envy And The Mark Of Fortune.

We Often Make Use Of Envenomed Praise, That Reveals On The Rebound, As It Were, Defects In Those Praised Which We Dare Not Exposeany Other Way.

Tricks And Treachery Are Merely Proofs Of Lack Of Skill.

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

We Would Rather Speak Ill Of Ourselves Than Not Talk About Ourselves At All.

The Judgments Our Enemies Make About Us Come Nearer To The Truth Than Those We Make About Ourselves.

Silence Is The Best Tactic For He Who Distrusts Himself.

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

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

A Clever Man Should Handle His Interests So That Each Will Fall In Suitable Order Of Their Value.

The Generality Of Virtuous Women Are Like Hidden Treasures, They Are Safe Only Because Nobody Has Sought After Them.

We Only Confess Our Little Faults To Persuade People That We Have No Big Ones.

Keeping Secrets

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

It Is Great Folly To Wish To Be Wise All Alone.

One Can No More Look Steadily At Death Than At The Sun.

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.

We All Have Enough Strength To Endure The Misfortunes Of Others.

Misfortunes Of Others

It Requires Greater Virtues To Support Good Fortune Than Bad.

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

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

Decency Is The Least Of All Laws, But Yet It Is The Law Which Is Most Strictly Observed.

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

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

True Love Is Like Ghosts, Which Everyone Talks About And Few Have Seen.

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.

The Intellect Is Always Fooled By The Heart.

If Vanity Does Not Entirely Overthrow The Virtues, At Least It Makes Them All Totter.

Only The Great Can Afford To Have Great Defects.

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.

Instead Of Considering That The Worst Way To Persuade Or Please Others Is To Try Thus Strongly To Please Ourselves, And That To Listen Well And To Answer Well Are Some Of The Greatest Charms We Can Have In Conversation.

The Constancy Of The Wise Is Only The Talent Of Concealing The Agitation Of Their Hearts.

Too Great Haste To Repay An Obligation Is A Kind Of Ingratitude.

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

Perfect Valour Consists In Doing Without Witnesses That Which We Would Be Capable Of Doing Before Everyone.

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.

Love Is The Smallest Part Of Gallantry.

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.

Everyone Praises His Heart, None Dare Praise Their Understanding.

We Often Shed Tears That Deceive Ourselves After Deceiving Others.

Deceiving Others

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.

We May Say Of Agreeableness, As Distinct From Beauty, That It Consists In A Symmetry Of Which We Know Not The Rules, And A Secret Conformity Of The Features To Each Other, As Also To The Air And Complexion Of The Person.

We Always Get Bored With Those Whom We Bore.

What Men Call Friendship Is No More Than A Partnership, A Mutual Care Of Interests, An Exchange Of Favors - In A Word, It Is A Sort Of Traffic, In Which Self-love Ever Proposes To Be The Gainer.

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

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

Fortune Cures Us Of Many Faults That Reason Could Not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only Great Men Have Great Faults.

What Makes Lovers Never Tire Of One Another Is That They Talk Always About Themselves.

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

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

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

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

Virtue Is To The Soul What Health Is Tot He Body.

Men's Happiness And Misery Depends Altogether As Much Upon Their Own Humor As It Does Upon Fortune.

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

Simplicity Is A Delicate Imposition.

Moderation Is An Ostentatious Proof Of Our Strength Of Character.

The Thing That Makes Our Friendships So Short And Changeable Is That The Qualities And Dispositions Of The Soul Are Very Hard To Know, And Those Of The Understanding And Wit Very Easy.

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

Weakness Is The Only Fault That Is Incorrigible.

Men Have Written In The Most Convincing Manner To Prove That Death Is No Evil, And This Opinion Has Been Confirmed On A Thousand Celebrated Occasions By The Weakest Of Men As Well As By Heroes. Even So I Doubt Whether Any Sensible Person Has Ever Believed It, And The Trouble Men Take To Convince Others As Well As Themselves That They Do Shows Clearly That It Is No Easy Undertaking.

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

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.

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

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

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

Nothing Is So Capable Of Diminishing Self-love As The Observation That We Disapprove At One Time What We Approve At Another.

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

Nature Seems At Each Man's Birth To Have Marked Out The Bounds Of His Virtues And Vices, And To Have Determined How Good Or How Wicked That Man Shall Be Capable Of Being.

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

We Only Acknowledge Small Faults In Order To Make It Appear That We Are Free From Great Ones.

Idleness Is More An Infirmity Of The Mind Than Of The Body.

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

We Often Are Consoled By Our Want Of Reason For Misfortunes That Reason Could Not Have Comforted.

A Readiness To Believe Ill Of Others, Before We Have Duly Examined It, Is The Effect Of Laziness And Pride. We Are Eager To Find Aculprit, And Loath To Give Ourselves The Trouble Of Examining The Crime.

In Every Walk Of Life Each Man Puts On A Personality And Outward Appearance So As To Look What He Wants To Be Thought; In Fact You Might Say That Society Is Entirely Made Up Of Assumed Personalities.

The Qualities We Have, Make Us So Ridiculous As Those Which We Affect.

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

Nothing Is More Contagious Than Example, And No Man Does Any Exceeding Good Or Exceeding Ill But It Spawns New Deeds Of The Same Kind. The Good We Imitate Through Emulation, The Ill Through The Malignity Of Our Nature, Which Shame Keeps Locked Up, But Example Sets Free.

Ridicule Dishonors A Man More Than Dishonor Does.

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.

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

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.

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

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

To Know How To Hide One's Ability Is Great Skill.

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

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

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