Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quality Quotations

What renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of the mind.

The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.

It is oftener by the estimation of our own feelings that we exaggerate the good qualities of others than by their merit, and when we praise them we wish to attract their praise.

The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.

Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.

All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.

There are some bad qualities which make great talents.

The surest proof of being endowed with noble qualities is to be free from envy.

We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.

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

The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.

The qualities we have, make us so ridiculous as those which we affect.

It is with certain good qualities as with the senses; those who have them not can neither appreciate nor comprehend them in others.

It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.

Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers.

Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.

Our good qualities expose us more to hatred and persecution than all the ill we do.

Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which fixes our hearts successively to all the qualities of the person loved--sometimes admiring one and sometimes another above all the rest--so that this constancy roves as far as it can, and is no better than inconstancy, confined within the compass of one person.

The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have. [Fr., On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.]

The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.