Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Bitter
Loss
Makes
Think
Thinking
People
Outwit
Cleverer
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face--so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Absence abates a moderate passion and intensifies a great one - as the wind blows out a candle but fans fire into flame.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Love of glory, fear of shame, greed for fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others - all of these are often the causes of the bravery that is spoken so highly of by men.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We should desire very few things passionately if we did but perfectly know the nature of the things we desire.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Happy people rarely correct their faults they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
One honor won is a surety for more.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.
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
High fortune makes both our virtues and vices stand out as objects that are brought clearly to view by the light.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Raillery is more insupportable than wrong because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
