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Idleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.

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
Taken
Idleness
Understanding
Stretch
Knowledge
Laziness
Easy
Finds
Ever
Carry
Cramps
Mind
Intelligence
Confines
Always
Habit
Constancy
Trouble
Agreeable

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The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
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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.
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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.
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Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which fixes our hearts successively to all the qualities of the person loved--sometimes admiring one and sometimes another above all the rest--so that this constancy roves as far as it can, and is no better than inconstancy, confined within the compass of one person.
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Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.
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It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity.
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The reason we do not let our friends see the very bottom of our hearts is not so much distrust of them as distrust of ourselves.
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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.
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To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.
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Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.
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The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance
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Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
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Great names abase, instead of elevating, those who do not know how to bear them.
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Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.
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It is most difficult to speak when we are ashamed of being silent.
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Self-love is the love of a man's own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.
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A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.
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Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
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The whimsicalness of our own humor is a thousand times more fickle and unaccountable than what we blame so much in fortune.
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