Quotes from Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We always get bored with those whom we bore.

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.

It takes more strength of character to withstand good fortune than bad.

We have not strength enough to follow our reason so far as it would carry us.

We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.

The tranquility or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the big things which happen to us in life, as on the pleasant or unpleasant arrangements of the little things which happen daily.

Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of.

Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.

How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?

People would not long remain in social life if they were not the dupes of each other.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites.

The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us.

Hope, deceitful as it is, carries us through life agreeably enough.

In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities.

We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

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.

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

We are very far from always knowing our own wishes.

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.

Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.