Quotes by François de La Rochefoucauld

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

“Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.”

“There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.”

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

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

“Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.”

“Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.”

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

“One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.”

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

“Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.”

“No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.”

“He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.”

“Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.”

“In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.”

“We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.”

“Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.”

“Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.”