Quotes from Francois de La Rochefoucauld

You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.

There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.

Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.

If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others.

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.

Time's chariot-wheels make their carriage-road in the fairest face.

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.

When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.

Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest.

Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

Gratitude is a useless word. You will find it in a dictionary but not in life.

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.

Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.

There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.

One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.

In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.

To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.

The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.

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.

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.

Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time.

As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.

Nothing ought in reason to mortify our self-satisfaction more that the considering that we condemn at one time what we highly approve and commend at another.

He who refuses praise the first time that it is offered does so because he would hear it a second time.