French author (1613-1680)
The rust of business is sometimes polished off in a camp; but never in a court.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Envy is destroyed by true friendship, and coquetry by true love.
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
What makes the vanity of others unsupportable is that it wounds our own.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
'Tis as easy to deceive ourselves without our perceiving it, as 'tis difficult to deceive others without their perceiving it.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
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
Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
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
Death and the sun can't be looked at steadily.
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
The head can't long act the part of the heart.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
We easily forgive in our friends those faults we do not perceive.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
The dullness of certain people is sometimes a sufficient security against the attack of an artful man.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
The ambitious deceive themselves in proposing an end to their ambition; that end, when attained, becomes a means.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
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
We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.
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
To praise great actions is in some sense to share them.
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