Francois de La Rochefoucauld

On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly…

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye…

Most people know no other way of judging men’s worth but by the vogue they…

Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of…

One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare…

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his…

It is from a weakness and smallness of mind that men are opinionated and we…

We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love…

There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do…

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a…

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of…

The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody…

Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of…

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency…

There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade…