FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD QUOTES VII

French author (1613-1680)

Did we not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never hurt us.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: flattery


Fortune turns everything to the advantage of her favorites.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: fortune


There are some disguised falsehoods so like truths, that 'twould be to judge ill not to be deceived by them.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: lying


Envy is destroyed by true friendship, and coquetry by true love.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims


We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: faults


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.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims


Misers mistake gold for their good; whereas 'tis only a means of attaining it.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: gold


The rust of business is sometimes polished off in a camp; but never in a court.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: business


Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims


A man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Tags: wit


What seems like generosity is often but a disguised ambition, which overlooks little interests, in order to gratify great ones.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: generosity


We may say, vices wait on us in the course of our life as the landlords with whom we successively lodge, and if we traveled the road twice over, I doubt if our experience would make us avoid them.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

attributed, Encyclopædia of Quotations: A Treasury of Wisdom, Wit and Humor, Odd Comparisons and Proverbs

Tags: vice


The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims


We try to make a virtue of vices we are loath to correct.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Tags: vice


To praise great actions is in some sense to share them.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: praise


Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: action


Death and the sun can't be looked at steadily.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: death


The ambitious deceive themselves in proposing an end to their ambition; that end, when attained, becomes a means.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: ambition


We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims


Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.

FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Moral Maxims

Tags: cunning