1,221 Quotes by François de La Rochefoucauld

Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.

It is no tragedy to do ungrateful people favors, but it is unbearable to be indebted to a scoundrel.

Silence is the best security to the man who distrusts himself.

Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.

Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; - and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable.

Whatever discoveries we may have made in the regions of self-love, there still remain many unknown lands.

Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.

One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.

There are few women whose charm survives their beauty.