Reflections and Moral Maxims - by François duc de La Rochefoucauld
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
The moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which good fortune bestows upon their temper.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears.
Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things.
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
There is real love just as there are real ghosts. Every person speaks of it, few persons have seen it.
Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.
We please more by our faults than by our good qualities.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labour.
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details, and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial.
If we conquer our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
To be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.
The modesty which pretends to refuse praise is but in truth a desire to be praised more highly.
The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities.
As rivers are lost in the sea so are virtues in self.
When our vices leave us we flatter ourselves with the idea we have left them.
What we call a cure is often no more than an intermission or change of disease.
The desire to appear clever often prevents our being so.
He who thinks he has the power to content the world greatly deceives himself, but he who thinks that the world cannot be content with him deceives himself yet more.
No one should be praised for his goodness if he has not strength enough to be wicked.
Goodness is but too often an idleness or powerlessness of will.
We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.
Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.
We always like those who admire us, we do not always like those whom we admire.
Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.
We never desire earnestly what we desire in reason.
Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than the common, but those only who have greater designs.
Before strongly desiring anything we should examine what happiness he has who possesses it.
The wise man finds it better not to enter the encounter than to conquer.