Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

by François de La Rochefoucauld

Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.

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.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

The moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which good fortune bestows upon their temper.

Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.

We have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an excuse we say things are impossible.

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 have not enough strength to follow all our reason.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.

To establish ourselves in the world we do everything to appear as if we were established.

There are no accidents so unfortunate from which skilful men will not draw some advantage, nor so fortunate that foolish men will not turn them to their hurt.

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.

—A clever man ought to so regulate his interests that each will fall in due order. Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest.

What grace is to the body good sense is to the mind.

If we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather resembles hatred than friendship.

Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.

There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it, few persons have seen it.

The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.

What men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours—in fact it is but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something.

It is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our friends.

Self love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them, and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.

Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.

Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.

Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.

The head is ever the dupe of the heart.

Those who know their minds do not necessarily know their hearts.

One kind of flirtation is to boast we never flirt.

Nothing is given so profusely as advice.

There may be good but there are no pleasant marriages.

The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us. We are never so easily deceived as when trying to deceive.

We frequently do good to enable us with impunity to do evil.

If we never flattered ourselves we should have but scant pleasure.

Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.

The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.

It is far easier to be wise for others than to be so for oneself.

There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.

We often boast that we are never bored, but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others.

As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.

The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.

The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.

It is easier to govern others than to prevent being governed.

Fortune cures us of many faults that reason could not.

Flattery is base coin to which only our vanity gives currency.

It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the management of them.