Quotes from La Rochefoucauld

All the passions make us commit faults love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy, in which the heart attaches itself successively to each of the lover's qualities, giving preference now to one, now to another.

Everyone complains of his lack of memory, but nobody of his want of judgment.

Everyone complains of his memory, none of his judgment.

For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.

Hope and fear are inseparable. There is no hope without fear, nor any fear without hope.

How can we expect another to keep our secret, if we cannot keep it ourself

How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

One is never as fortunate or as unfortunate as one thinks.

People would never fall in love if they had not heard love talked about.

Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils but present evils triumph over it.

Some disguised deceits counterfeit truth so perfectly that not to be taken in by them would be an error of judgment.

The man who lives free from folly is not so wise as he thinks.

The mind cannot long act the role of the heart.

The pleasure of love is in the loving and there is more joy in the passion one feels than in that which one inspires.

The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves.

The surest way to be deceived is to think oneself cleverer than the others.

There is no accident so disastrous that a clever man cannot derive some profit from it nor any so fortunate that a fool cannot turn it to his disadvantage.

Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally incapable of great things.

We are all strong enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

We are never so happy or unhappy as we think.

We are never so ridiculous through what we are as through what we pretend to be.