Francois de La Rochefoucauld Lt Quotations

We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.

We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.

Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.

If one acts rightly and honestly, it is difficult to decide whether it is the effect of integrity or skill.

Only great men have great faults.

We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct.

As the great ones of this world are unable to bestow health of body or peace of mind, we always pay too high a price for any good they can do.

Sobriety is concern for one's health - or limited capacity.

Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

Strength and weakness of mind are misnomers; they are really nothing but the good or bad health of our bodily organs.

The sicknesses of the soul have their ups and downs like those of the body; what we take to be a cure is most often merely a respite or change of disease.

In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought; in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities.

No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.

The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.

It is difficult to like those whom we do not esteem; but it is no less so to like those whom we esteem more than ourselves.

Solemnity is a device of the body to hide the faults of the mind.

It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen.

We forget our faults easily when they are known to ourselves alone.

Only the great can afford to have great defects.

To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.

Were we faultless, we would not derive such satisfaction from remarking the faults of others.

Innocence is lucky if it finds the same protection as guilt

It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding.

In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities.

The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance

Weakness is the only fault that is incorrigible.

Wisdom is the mind what health is to the body.

There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.

Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.

We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.

Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.

Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.

Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.

It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved.

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.

The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.

It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.

Fortune mends more faults in us than ever reason would be able to do.

Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.

Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.

What we cut off from our other faults is very often but so much added to our pride.

We easily forget our faults when no one knows them but ourselves.

The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.

The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body; and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.

Our wisdom is no less at fortune's mercy than our wealth.

The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.

Great men should not have great faults.

There are some faults which, when well managed, make a greater figure than virtue itself.

If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others.

The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it; it deprives them of knowledge of remedies which can solace their miseries and can cure their faults.

A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind.