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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.

“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

Great

All Quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“One forgives to the degree that one loves.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Forgiveness

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Love

“It is with true love as it is with ghosts everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Love

“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

Change

“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

Great

“It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“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

Great

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Death

“The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Age

“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

“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

Best

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“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

Design

“Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Alone

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Friendship

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

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Good

“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

Fear

“Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Men

“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

Great

“Taste may change, but inclination never.”

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Change