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We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.
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
Gain
Gains
Seem
Seems
Trying
World
Letting
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.
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Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.
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It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.
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Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.
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Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
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If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Indolence, languid as it is, often masters both passions and virtues.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, as also to the air and complexion of the person.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
That man, we may be sure, is a person of true worth, whom those who envy him most are yet forced to praise.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Pity is a sense of our own misfortunes in those of another man it is a sort of foresight of the disasters which may befall ourselves. We assist others,, in order that they may assist us on like occasions so that the services we offer to the unfortunate are in reality so many anticipated kindnesses to ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are very few things impossible in themselves and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
