François de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

What society calls virtue is for the most part a mere phantom conjured by our passions; we give it a respectable name so that we can do what we like with impunity.

Those who obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats

Afflictions give rise to various kinds of hypocrisy: in one, pretending to weep over the loss of someone dear to us we really weep for ourselves, since we miss that person's good opinion of us or deplore some curtailment of our wealth, pleasure, or position. The dead, therefore, are honored by tears shed for the living alone. I call this a kind of hypocrisy because in afflictions of this sort we deceive ourselves. There is another hypocrisy, less innocent because aimed at the world at large: the affliction of certain persons who aspire to the glory of a beautiful, immortal sorrow. Time, the universal destroyer, has taken away the grief they really felt, but still they obstinately go on weeping, wailing, and sighing; they are acting a mournful part and striving to make all their actions prove that their distress will only end with their lives. This miserable and tiresome vanity is usually found in ambitious women, for as their sex precludes them from all the roads to glory they seek celebrity by a display of inconsolable affliction. There is yet another kind of tears that rise from shallow springs and flow or dry up at will: people shed them so as to be pitied or wept over, or, finally, to avoid the disgrace of not weeping

Each one of us finds in others the very faults others find in us

We are never as fortunate or as unfortunate as we suppose

Where love is, no disguise can hide it for long; where it is not, none can simulate it

As our character deteriorates, so does our taste

All men have an equal share of pride; the only difference is in their ways and means of showing it

Luxury and excessive refinements are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect the public weal

Moderation in times of good fortune is merely dread of the humiliating aftermath of excess, or fear of losing what one has

The subtlest wisdom can produce the subtlest folly

The vagaries of our moods are even stranger than those of fortune

In most men love of justice is only fear of suffering injustice

When you cannot find your peace in yourself it is useless to look for it elsewhere

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others