Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.”

“What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.”

“A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.”

“However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.”

“They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.”

“It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them.”

“As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.”

“We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.”

“To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.”

“We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.”

“Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.”

“Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.”

“Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.”

“There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.”

“Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.”

“Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.”

“Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.”

“In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.”

“One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.”

“Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.”

“True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.”

“There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.”

“It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.”

“Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.”