Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it.
Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.
Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.
Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.
We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.
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.
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.
A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.
Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self.
On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.
We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.
The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.
Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.
In love we often doubt what we most believe.
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
There is many a virtuous woman weary of her trade.
If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us.
It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.
It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
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.
The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.
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.
Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.
Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.
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?
When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.
The passions are the only orators which always persuade.
Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.