1,221 Quotes by François de La Rochefoucauld

The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.

He that would be a great man must learn to turn every accident to some advantage.

Very few people are acquainted with death. They undergo it, commonly, not so much out of resolution as custom and insensitivity; and most men die because they cannot help it.

Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.

Nothing is given so profusely as advice.

Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness thanothers. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

There are persons whose only merit consists in saying and doing stupid things at the right time, and who ruin all if they change their manners.