As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
We speak little if not egged on by vanity.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
It is a great ability to be able to conceal one’s ability.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
A man who finds no satisfaction in himself will seek for it in vain elsewhere.
– François de La Rochefoucauld
We never listen when we are eager to speak.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In jealousy there is more self-love than love.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We should not judge of a man’s merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Imagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person’s heart.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We often forgive those who bore us, but we do not forgive those we bore.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand different versions.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The truest way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
All passions make us commit faults, but love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary by sense.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld