Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Taste may change, but inclination never."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Only the contemptible fear contempt."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"One forgives to the degree that one loves."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"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

"However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"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."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"To know how to hide one's ability is great skill."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness."

-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

"What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love."

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld