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The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Age: 66 †
Born: 1613
Born: September 15
Died: 1680
Died: March 17
Memoirist
Military Personnel
Writer
Paris
France
François VI
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Prince de Marcillac
François
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Names
Interest
Self
Real
Serviceable
Pretense
Vices
Name
Virtue
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have. [Fr., On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.]
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A good woman is a hidden treasure who discovers her will do well not to boast about it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are some faults which, when well managed, make a greater figure than virtue itself.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
When a man must force himself to be faithful in his love, this is hardly better than unfaithfulness.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness... and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are two things which Man cannot look at directly without flinching: the sun and death.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Fortune never seems so blind to any as to those on whom she bestows no favors.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
