Quotes from Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Jealousy is not love, but self-love.

Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.

Love is the smallest part of gallantry.

Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

Moderation cannot have the credit of combatiug and subduing ambition, they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and indolence of the soul, as ambition is its activity and ardor.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

The trust that we put in ourselves makes us feel trust in others.

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.

If we judge love by most of its effects, it resembles rather hatred than affection.

The heart is forever making the head its fool.

Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.

A woman is faithful to her first lover for a long time - unless she happens to take a second.

It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.

The pleasure of love is in loving; we are happier in the passion we feel than in what we inspire.

The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry.

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 one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.

Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.

In love, the quickest is always the best cure.