François de La Rochefoucauld may refer to:
The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.
There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
The pleasure of love is in loving.
Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.
Civility is a desire to receive civilities, and to be accounted well-bred.
It is a mighty error to suppose that none but violent and strong passions, such as love and ambition, are able to vanquish the rest. Even idleness, as feeble and languishing as it is, sometimes reigns over them; it usurps the throne and sits paramount over all the designs and actions of our lives, and imperceptibly wastes and destroys all our passions and all our virtues.
Our wisdom lies as much at the mercy of fortune as our possessions do.
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
We should desire very few things passionately if we did but perfectly know the nature of the things we desire.
The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.
We are never either so fortunate or so misfortunate as we imagine.
Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness. . . and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.
Only great men have great faults.
Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.
Fearlessness is a more than ordinary strength of mind, which raises the soul above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which theprospect of great dangers are used to produce. And by this inward strength it is that heroes preserve themselves in a calm and quiet state, and enjoy a presence of mind and the free use of their reason in the midst of those terrible accidents that amaze and confound other people.
We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.