Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of…

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass…

One forgives to the degree that one loves…

If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from…

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship…

We pardon to the extent that we love…

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors…

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans…

Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than…

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune…

Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune…

We are all strong enough to bear other men’s misfortunes…

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests…

In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors…

It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives…