Francois de La Rochefoucauld...

Yannis Stavrou, Sunday Promenade, oil on canvas

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, the best company to face our times...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680). Some of his famous quotes:

• A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
• Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
• Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak.
• Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
• Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
• Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
• He who lives without folly isn’t so wise as he thinks.
• Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue.
• If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.
• It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
• Jealousy feeds upon suspicion, and it turns into fury or it ends as soon as we pass from suspicion to certainty.
• Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.
• No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.
• Nothing is less sincere than our mode of asking and giving advice. He who asks seems to have a deference for the opinion of his friend, while he only aims to get approval of his own and make his friend responsible for his action. And he who gives advice repays the confidence supposed to be placed in him by a seemingly disinterested zeal, while he seldom means anything by his advice but his own interest or reputation.
• One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.
• Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence.
• Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
• Small minds are much distressed by little things. Great minds see them all but are not upset by them.
• The defects and faults in the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind.
• The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
• The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.
• The passions are the only orators that always persuade.
• The passions often engender their contraries.
• The pleasure of love is in loving.
• To establish oneself in the world, one has to do all one can to appear established.
• To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
• We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
• We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire.
• We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
• We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.