Quote

The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Appearing
Clever
Becoming
Desire
Often
Pretension
Cleverness
Prevents

More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Image
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
Even women are perfect at the outset.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
We take less pains to be happy, than to appear so.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
Those only are despicable who fear to be despised.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
There are few people who would not be ashamed of being loved when they love no longer.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
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
Image
Fortune cures us of many faults that reason could not.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
It is much better to learn to deal with the ills we have now than to speculate on those that may befall us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
There is a form of eminence which does not depend on fate it is an air which sets us apart and seems to prtend great things it is the value which we unconsciously attach to ourselves it is the quality which wins us deference of others more than birth, position, or ability, it gives us ascendance.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
Fortune never seems so blind to any as to those on whom she bestows no favors.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Image
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
Image
The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld