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Francois de La Rochefoucauld

100 quotes

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) was a French moralist and author of *Maxims*, a collection of pithy observations about human behavior and society. His sharp, often cynical reflections on vanity, self-interest, and the gap between appearance and reality remain strikingly relevant centuries later.

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Happiness

All Quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Friendship

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Good

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Death

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Love

“If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Strength

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Death

“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

Great

“No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Power

“No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“Many men are contemptuous of riches few can give them away.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Best

“There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Women

“However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Truth

“One forgives to the degree that one loves.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Forgiveness

“Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Hope

“When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Time

“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

Business

“Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Jealousy

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Great