Quotes by La Rochefoucauld

"We need greater virtues to sustain good fortune than bad."

"Virtue would not go so far if vanity did not keep it company."

"When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves with the idea that we have left them."

"It is more shameful to mistrust one's friends than to be deceived by them."

"Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of one another."

"Self-interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of roles, even that of disinterestedness."

"How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?"

"The refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice."

"If we resist our passions, it is more from their weakness than from our strength."

"Men have made a virtue of moderation to limit the ambition of the great, and to console people of mediocrity for their want of fortune and of merit."

"It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks of it, but few have seen it."

"If we judge of love by its usual effects, it resembles hatred more than friendship."

"Everyone complains of hismemory, and no one complains of his judgment."

"Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it."

"Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue."

"Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble."

"It is a wearisome illness to preserve one's health by too strict a regimen."

"One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks."

"The gratitude of most men is nothing but a secret desire to receive greater benefits."

"What is called liberality is often merely the vanity of giving."