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Quotes from Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims — François de La Rochefoucauld

1613–1680 France

← All quotes by François de La Rochefoucauld

122 quotes

What often prevents us from abandoning ourselves to one vice is that we have several.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

If we resist our passions, it is more through their weakness than our strength.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

What makes the vanity of others insufferable to us is that it wounds our own.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

We promise according to our hopes; we fulfill according to our fears.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

We may bestow advice, but we cannot inspire the conduct.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually merely inertia or lack of will-power.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

As we age, we become more foolish and wiser.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

The stamp of great minds is to suggest much in few words; by contrast, little minds have the gift of talking a great deal and saying nothing.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

In all professions we affect a part and an appearance to seem what we wish to be. Thus the world is merely composed of actors.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

It is difficult to define love. In the soul it is a passion to rule; in the mind it is sympathy; and in the body it is only a hidden and tactful desire to possess what we love after many mysteries.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

One must not just have great qualities, but also economize them

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Only firm people can be truly soft.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Only great men have great faults.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Usually we only praise to be praised.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

We pardon to the extent that we love.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: François de La Rochefoucauld (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.