Francois de La Rochefoucauld Men Quotations [Page 2]

We exaggerate the glory of some men in order to detract from that of others.

A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.

It is safer to do most men harm than to do them too much good.

A man seldom finds people unthankful, as long as he remains in a condition of benefiting them further.

A wise man should order his interests, and set them all in their proper places. This order is often troubled by greed, which putsus upon pursuing so many things at once that, in eagerness for matters of less consideration, we grasp at trifles, and let go things of greater value.

Perseverance is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy; for it seems to be only the enduring of certain inclinations and opinions which men neither give themselves nor take away from themselves.

One man may be more cunning than another, but no one can be more cunning than all the world.

The moderation of men in the most exalted fortunes is a desire to be thought above those things that have raised them so high.

Some men are like ballads, that are in everyone's mouth a little while.

It is easier for a man to be thought fit for an employment that he has not, than for one he stands already possessed of, and is exercising.

Men frequently do good only to give themselves opportunity of doing ill with impunity.

None but great men are capable of having great flaws.

Great men's honor ought always to be measured by the methods they made use of in attaining it.

Self-love is the love of a man's own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.

All men are equally proud. The only difference is that not all take the same methods of showing it.

The courage of a great many men, and the virtue of a great many women, are the effect of vanity, shame, and especially a suitabletemperament.

We are much mistaken if we think that men are always brave from a principle of valor, or women chaste from a principle of modesty.

The most ingenious men continually pretend to condemn tricking--but this is often done that they may use it more conveniently themselves, when some great occasion or interest offers itself to them.

Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies; and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves.

The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him; and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others.

Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

The esteem of good men is the reward of our worth, but the reputation of the world in general is the gift of our fate.

Silence is the best security to the man who distrusts himself.

A man's wits are better employed in bearing up under the misfortunes that lie upon him at present than in foreseeing those that may come upon him hereafter.

No man can love a second time the person whom he has once truly ceased to love.

A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.

A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived.

The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice; a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.

The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally tobe nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.

Men never desire anything very eagerly which they desire only by the dictates of reason.

Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.

A man often thinks he rules himself, when all the while he is ruled and managed; and while his understanding directs one design, his affections imperceptibly draw him into another.

Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.

Very few people are acquainted with death. They undergo it, commonly, not so much out of resolution as custom and insensitivity; and most men die because they cannot help it.

That man, we may be sure, is a person of true worth, whom those who envy him most are yet forced to praise.

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune.

Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.

The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so.

A man does not please long when he has only species of wit.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.

Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes.

Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.

Pity is a sense of our own misfortunes in those of another man; it is a sort of foresight of the disasters which may befall ourselves. We assist others,, in order that they may assist us on like occasions; so that the services we offer to the unfortunate are in reality so many anticipated kindnesses to ourselves.

Great men should not have great faults.

The good or the bad fortune of men depends not less upon their own dispositions than upon fortune.

In infants, levity is a prettiness; in men a shameful defect; but in old age, a monstrous folly.

It is more difficult for a man to be faithful to his mistress when he is favored than when he is ill treated by her.

For the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes.

The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.

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.

Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.

Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.

To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.

Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.

A man of understanding finds less difficulty in submitting to a wrong-headed fellow, than in attempting to set him right.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

Passion very often makes the wisest men fools, and very often too inspires the greatest fools with wit.

A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man.

Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.

To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

Few men know all the ill they do.

A man is perhaps ungrateful, but often less chargeable with ingratitude than his benefactor is.

Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know not how to prevent dying.

Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.

The dullness of certain people is sometimes a sufficient security against the attack of an artful man.