Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.”

“We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.”

“We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.”

“Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.”

“It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated and we are very loath to believe what we are not able to comprehend.”

“There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.”

“Many men are contemptuous of riches few can give them away.”

“It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.”

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

“There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.”

“No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.”

“We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.”

“Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.”

“We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.”

“Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.”

“If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.”

“We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.”

“We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.”

“However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.”

“Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.”

“We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.”

“There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.”

“You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.”

“The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.”