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Were we perfectly acquainted with the object, we should never passionately desire it.
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
Perfectly
Object
Objects
Desire
Never
Acquainted
Passionately
Delusion
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who refuses praise the first time that it is offered does so because he would hear it a second time.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We think very few people sensible, except those who are of our opinion.
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Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.
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
Great names abase, instead of elevating, those who do not know how to bear them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Truth has scarce done so much good in the world as the false appearances of it have done hurt.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Self-love makes our friends appear more or less deserving in proportion to the delight we take in them, and the measures by whichwe judge of their worth depend upon the manner of their conversing with us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We have not strength enough to follow our reason so far as it would carry us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Fortune never seems so blind to any as to those on whom she bestows no favors.
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
Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly.
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
Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is easier to rule others than to keep from being ruled oneself.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are some faults which, when well managed, make a greater figure than virtue itself.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
