Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.

People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.

We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.

The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.

No matter how much care we put into hiding our passions under the appearances of devotion and honor, they can always be seen to peer out through these covers.

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.

One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.

The passions are the only orators which always persuade.

We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.

What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several.

In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances.

On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.