François de La Rochefoucauld may refer to:
Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.
The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness. . . and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.
Gratitude is a useless word. You will find it in a dictionary but not in life.
We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.
A man's worth has its season, like fruit.
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.
The less you trust others, the less you will be deceived.
We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy.
There are some persons who only disgust with their abilities, there are persons who please even with their faults.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
Ability wins us the esteem of the true men; luck, that of the people.
In infants, levity is a prettiness; in men a shameful defect; but in old age, a monstrous folly.
The only thing constant in life is change
For the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes.
What often prevents our abandoning ourselves to a single vice is, our having more than one.
The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration.
Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise.