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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.

“Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

All Quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Time

“Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“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

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Age

“It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Love

“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

Friendship

“There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“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

Great

“We pardon to the extent that we love.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Love

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Great

“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

Future

“We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Love

“We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Strength

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Hope

“Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Age

“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

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Death