1,221 Quotes by François de La Rochefoucauld

Youth is a perpetual intoxication; it is a fever of the mind.

To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.

To establish yourself in the world a person must do all they can to appear already established.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.

It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.

Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?