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We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.
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
Use
Makes
Merits
Great
Qualities
Men
Merit
Judge
Accomplish
Judging
Quality
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.
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We pardon to the extent that we love.
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The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
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Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.
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Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done. [Fr., On croit quelquefoir hair la flatterie maid on ne hait que a maniere de flatter.]
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A man may be sharper than another, but not than all others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
