La Rochefoucauld is the one who thinks. A world of aphorisms! wise thoughts, quotes, parables
1. To justify ourselves in our own eyes, we often admit that we are powerless to achieve something; in reality we are not powerless, but weak-willed
2. As a rule, it is not kindness, but pride that forces us to read instructions to people who have committed actions; We reproach them not even in order to correct them, but only in order to convince them of our own infallibility
3. Those who are overzealous in small things usually become incapable of great things.
4. We lack the strength of character to obediently follow all the dictates of reason.
5. What makes us happy is not what surrounds us, but our attitude towards it, and we feel happy when we have what we ourselves love, and not what others consider worthy of love
6. No matter how proud people are of their achievements, the latter are often the result not of great plans, but of ordinary chance
7. A person’s happiness and unhappiness depend not only on his fate, but on his character
8. Grace is to the body what sanity is to the mind.
9. Even the most skillful pretense will not help you hide love for long when it is there, or pretend it when it is not.
10. If you judge love by its usual manifestations, it looks more like enmity than friendship.
11. No person, having stopped loving, can avoid feeling shame for past love
12. Love brings people as many benefits as it brings misfortunes
13. Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.
14. People could not live in society if they did not have the opportunity to fool each other by the nose
15. Those who have managed to earn the praise of their envious people are endowed with truly extraordinary qualities.
16. With such generosity as we give out advice, we give out nothing else.
17. The more we love a woman, the more we tend to hate her.
18. By pretending that we have fallen into a trap prepared for us, we are showing truly refined cunning, since it is easiest to deceive a person when he wants to deceive you
19. It is much easier to show wisdom in other people's affairs than in your own
20. It’s easier for us to control people than to stop them from controlling us.
21. Nature endows us with virtues, and fate helps us manifest them.
22. There are people who are repulsive despite all their advantages, and there are people who are attractive despite their shortcomings.
23. Flattery is a counterfeit coin that circulates only because of our vanity.
24. It is not enough to have many virtues - it is important to be able to use them
25. Decent people they respect us for our virtues, but the crowd respects us for the favor of fate
26. Society often rewards the appearance of virtues rather than the virtues themselves.
27. It would be much more useful to use all the powers of our mind to cope with the misfortunes that befall us with dignity than to predict the misfortunes that may yet happen
28. The desire for glory, the fear of shame, the pursuit of wealth, the desire to make life as comfortable and pleasant as possible, the desire to humiliate others - this is what often underlies the valor so praised by people
29. The highest virtue is to do something alone, but which people decide only in the presence of many witnesses.
30. Only that person who has the strength of character to sometimes be evil is worthy of praise for kindness; otherwise, kindness most often speaks only of inactivity or lack of will
31. In most cases, doing evil to people is not as dangerous as doing them too much good.
32. Most often, those people who are a burden to others are those who believe that they are not a burden to anyone.
33. A real trickster is one who knows how to hide his own cleverness
34. Generosity neglects everything in order to take possession of everything
36. True eloquence is the ability to say everything you need and no more than you need
37. Every person, no matter who he is, tries to put on such an appearance and put on such a mask so that he is mistaken for who he wants to appear to be; Therefore, we can say that society consists only of masks
38. Majesty is a cunning trick of the body, invented in order to hide the shortcomings of the mind.
39. So-called generosity is usually based on vanity, which is dearer to us than everything we give
40. The reason people so readily believe bad things without trying to understand the essence is because they are vain and lazy. They want to find the guilty, but they do not want to bother themselves with analyzing the offense committed.
41. No matter how perspicacious a person is, it is not possible for him to comprehend all the evil that he creates
42. Sometimes a lie pretends to be the truth so cleverly that not to succumb to deception would mean betraying common sense
43. Ostentatious simplicity is subtle hypocrisy
44. It can be argued that human characters, like some buildings, have several facades, and not all of them have a pleasant appearance
45. We rarely understand what we really want.
46. The gratitude of most people is caused by a secret desire to achieve even greater benefits.
47. Almost all people pay for small favors; most are grateful for minor ones, but almost no one feels grateful for large ones.
48. No matter what praise we hear addressed to ourselves, we do not find anything new in them for ourselves.
49. We often treat those who are a burden to us condescendingly, but we are never condescending to those to whom we ourselves are a burden
50. It is just as reasonable to extol your virtues in private as it is stupid to boast about them in front of others.
51. There are situations in life that you can get out of only with the help of a considerable amount of recklessness
52. What is the reason that we remember in every detail what happened to us, but are not able to remember how many times we told the same person about it?
53. The enormous pleasure with which we talk about ourselves should instill in our souls the suspicion that our interlocutors do not share it at all
54. Confessing minor shortcomings, we are thereby trying to convince society that we do not have more significant
55. To become a great man, you need to be able to deftly use the chance that fate offers
56. We consider only those people who agree with us on everything to be sane.
57. Many disadvantages, if used skillfully, shine brighter than any advantages.
58. People of small minds are sensitive to petty insults; people of great intelligence notice everything and are not offended by anything
59. No matter how distrustful we may be of our interlocutors, it still seems to us that they are more sincere with us than with others
60. Cowards, as a rule, are unable to assess strength. own fear
61. Young people usually think that their behavior is natural, while in fact they are behaving rudely and ill-mannered.
62. People of shallow minds often discuss everything that goes beyond their understanding
63. True friendship knows no envy, but real love– coquetry
64. You can give good advice to your neighbor, but you cannot teach him reasonable behavior.
65. Everything that ceases to work out ceases to interest us
67. If vanity does not completely destroy all our virtues, then, in any case, it shakes them
68. It is often easier to endure deception than to hear the whole truth about yourself.
69. Majesty is not always inherent in virtues, but majesty is always characterized by some virtues
70. Majesty suits virtue as much as precious jewelry suits the face. beautiful woman
71. Those older women who remember that they were once attractive, but have forgotten that they have long since lost it, find themselves in the most ridiculous situation. former beauty
72. We would often have to blush for our most noble deeds if those around us knew about our motives.
73. Not capable for a long time I like someone who is smart in one way
74. The mind usually serves us only to boldly do stupid things
75. Both the charm of novelty and long habit, despite all the opposite, equally prevent us from seeing the shortcomings of our friends
76. A woman in love would rather forgive a major indiscretion than a small infidelity
77. Nothing hinders naturalness more than the desire to appear natural.
78. To sincerely praise good deeds means to take part in them to some extent.
79. The surest sign of high virtues is not to know envy from birth
80. It is easier to know people in general than one person in particular.
81. A person’s merits should not be judged by his good qualities, but by the way he uses them
82. Sometimes we are too grateful, sometimes when we pay off our friends for the good they have done to us, we still leave them in our debt.
83. We would have very few passionate desires if we knew exactly what we want.
84. Both in love and in friendship, we are more often given pleasure by what we do not know than by what we know.
85. We try to take credit for those shortcomings that we do not want to correct.
87. In serious matters, one must care not so much about creating favorable opportunities, but about not missing them
88. What our enemies think about us is closer to the truth than ours own opinion
89. We have no idea what our passions can push us to.
90. Sympathy for enemies in trouble is most often caused not so much by kindness as by vanity: we sympathize with them in order to show our superiority over them
91. Great talents often come from flaws.
92. No one’s imagination is capable of coming up with such a multitude of contradictory feelings that usually coexist in one human heart
93. Only people with a strong character can show true gentleness: for the rest, their apparent softness is, as a rule, ordinary weakness, which easily becomes embitterment
94. The peace of our soul or its confusion depends not so much on the important events of our life, but on the successful or unpleasant combination of everyday little things for us
95. A not too broad mind, but a sound one, as a result, is not so tiring for the interlocutor than a broad, but confused mind
96. There are reasons why one can abhor life, but one cannot despise death.
97. We shouldn’t think that death will seem the same to us up close as we saw it from afar.
98. The mind is too weak for us to rely on when facing death.
99. The talents with which God has endowed people are as diverse as the trees with which he adorned the earth, and each has special properties and unique fruits. Therefore, the best pear tree will not give birth to even crappy apples, but the best talented person gives in to a task that, although mediocre, is given only to those who are capable of this task. For this reason, composing aphorisms when you do not have at least a little talent for this activity is no less ridiculous than expecting tulips to bloom in a garden bed where no bulbs are planted.
100. We are therefore ready to believe any stories about the shortcomings of our neighbors, because it is easiest to believe what we want
101. Hope and fear are inseparable: fear is always full of hope, hope is always full of fear
102. We should not be offended by people who have hidden the truth from us: we ourselves constantly hide it from ourselves.
103. The end of good marks the beginning of evil, and the end of evil marks the beginning of good
104. Philosophers condemn wealth only because we manage it poorly. It depends on us alone how to acquire it, how to put it to use, without serving vice. Instead of using wealth to support and feed evil deeds, as firewood feeds a fire, we could give it to the service of virtues, thereby giving them both shine and attractiveness
105. The collapse of all a person’s hopes is pleasant for everyone: both his friends and his enemies.
106. Having become completely bored, we stop being bored
107. Only those who do not tell anyone about it expose themselves to true self-flagellation; otherwise everything is made easier by vanity
108. A wise man is happy, being content with little, but for a fool nothing is enough: that’s why all people are unhappy
109. A clear mind gives to the soul what health gives to the body
110. Lovers begin to see the shortcomings of their mistresses only when their feelings come to an end.
111. Prudence and love are not made for each other: as love increases, prudence decreases
112. A wise person understands that it is better to ban a hobby than to fight it later
113. It is much more useful to study not books, but people
114. As a rule, happiness finds the happy, and misfortune finds the unhappy
115. He who loves too much does not notice for a long time that he himself is no longer loved.
116. We scold ourselves only so that someone will praise us
117. Hiding our true feelings is much more difficult than portraying non-existent ones.
118. The one who doesn’t like anyone is much more unhappy than the one who doesn’t like anyone
119. A person who realizes what troubles could befall him is thereby already to some extent happy
120. Anyone who has not found peace in himself cannot find it anywhere
121. A person is never as unhappy as he would like.
122. It is not in our will to fall in love or fall out of love, therefore neither a lover has the right to complain about the frivolity of his mistress, nor does she have the right to complain about inconstancy
123. When we stop loving, it gives us joy that they cheat on us, since thereby we are freed from the need to remain faithful
124. In the failures of our close friends we find something even pleasant for ourselves
125. Having lost hope of discovering intelligence in those around us, we ourselves no longer try to preserve it.
126. No one hurries others like lazy people: having gratified their own laziness, they want to appear diligent
127. We have as much reason to complain about people who help us to know ourselves as an Athenian madman to complain about the doctor who cured him of the false belief that he is a rich man
128. Our self-love is such that no flatterer can outdo it.
129. The same thing can be said about all our virtues as a certain person once said Italian poet about decent women: most often they just skillfully pretend to be decent
130. We admit to our own vices only under the pressure of vanity
131. Rich funeral rites do not so much perpetuate the virtues of the dead as appease the vanity of the living
132. To organize a conspiracy, you need unshakable courage, and to steadfastly endure the dangers of war, ordinary courage is enough
133. A man who has never been in danger cannot be responsible for his own courage
134. People find it much easier to limit their gratitude than their hopes and desires.
135. Imitation is always unbearable, and a fake is unpleasant to us for the very features that are so captivating in the original
136. The depth of our grief for lost friends is consistent not so much with their virtues as with our own need for these people, as well as how highly they valued our virtues
137. We find it difficult to believe in what lies beyond our horizons
138. Truth is the fundamental principle and essence of beauty and perfection; Only that which, having everything it ought to have, is truly such as it ought to be is beautiful and perfect.
139. It happens that wonderful works more attractive when they are imperfect than when they are too complete
140. Generosity is a noble effort of pride, with the help of which a person masters himself, thereby mastering everything around him
141. Laziness is the most unpredictable of our passions. Despite the fact that its power over us is imperceptible, and the damage it causes is deeply hidden from our eyes, there is no passion more ardent and harmful. If we take a close look at her influence, we will be convinced that she invariably manages to take possession of all our feelings, desires and pleasures: she is like a stuck fish, stopping huge ships, like a dead calm, more dangerous for our most important affairs than any reefs and storms. In lazy peace the soul finds a secret delight, for the sake of which we instantly forget about our most ardent aspirations and our firmest intentions. Finally, to give a true idea of this passion, we add that laziness is such a sweet peace of the soul that consoles it in all losses and replaces all blessings.
142. Everyone loves to study others, but no one likes to be studied
143. What a boring disease it is to protect your own health with too strict a regime!
144. Most women give up not because their passion is so strong, but because they are weak. This is the reason why enterprising men are always so successful, even though they are not the most attractive
145. The surest way to kindle passion in another is to keep the cold yourself
146. The height of sanity of the least sane people lies in the ability to meekly follow the reasonable orders of others
147. People strive to achieve worldly goods and pleasures at the expense of their neighbors
148. Most likely to get bored is the one who is convinced that he cannot bore anyone
149. It is unlikely that several people will have the same aspirations, but it is necessary that the aspirations of each of them do not contradict each other
150. All of us, with few exceptions, are afraid to appear before our neighbors as we really are.
151. We lose a lot by appropriating a manner that is alien to us
152. People try to appear different from what they really are, instead of becoming what they want to appear to be.
153. Many people are not only ready to abandon their inherent manner of behavior for the sake of one that they consider corresponding to the position and rank they have achieved, they, even just dreaming of elevation, begin to behave in advance as if they had already risen. How many colonels behave like marshals of France, how many judges pretend to be chancellors, how many townswomen play the role of duchesses!
154. People do not think about the words they listen to, but about those they are eager to utter
155. You need to talk about yourself and set yourself as an example as little as possible
156. He acts prudently who does not exhaust the subject of the conversation himself and gives others the opportunity to come up with something else and say something else
157. You need to talk to everyone about subjects close to them and only when it is appropriate
158. If you say the right word at the right moment - great art, then to remain silent on time is an even greater art. Eloquent silence can sometimes express agreement and disapproval; Sometimes the silence is mocking, and sometimes it is respectful
159. People usually become outspoken out of vanity.
160. There are few secrets in the world that are kept forever
161. Great examples gave rise to a disgusting number of copies
162. Old people love to give so much good advice because they can no longer set bad examples
163. Our enemies' opinions about us are much closer to the truth than our own opinions
1613-1680 French writer.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The gratitude of most people is nothing more than a hidden expectation of even greater benefits.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Only those who deserve it are afraid of contempt.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is a kind of love that, in its highest manifestation, leaves no room for jealousy.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is more selfishness in jealousy than love.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In serious matters, one should be concerned not so much about creating favorable opportunities as about not missing them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Everyone complains about their lack of memory, but no one has yet complained about their lack of common sense.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Anything that stops working out stops attracting.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The only thing that usually prevents us from completely indulging in one vice is that we have several of them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If we decide never to deceive others, they will deceive us every now and then.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are quite a few people who despise wealth, but only a few of them will be able to part with it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The desire to talk about ourselves and show our shortcomings only from the side from which it is most beneficial for us is main reason our sincerity.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those who are envied.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Grace for the body is the same as common sense for the mind.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
True love is like a ghost: everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
No matter how rare true love, true friendship is even less common.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Love, like fire, knows no rest: it ceases to live as soon as it stops hoping or fighting.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The people we love almost always have more power over our soul than we ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We despise not those who have vices, but those who have no virtues.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We got so used to wearing masks in front of others that we ended up wearing masks even in front of ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Nature endows us with virtues, and fate helps us manifest them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Mockery is often a sign of poverty of mind: it comes to the rescue when good arguments are lacking.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
True friendship knows no envy, and true love knows no coquetry.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Flaws are sometimes more forgivable than the means used to hide them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Mental deficiencies, like appearance flaws, worsen with age.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The inaccessibility of women is one of their outfits and accessories to enhance their beauty.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A man's merits should be judged not by his great merits, but by how he applies them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Usually happiness comes to the happy, and unhappiness to the unhappy.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Usually happiness comes to the happy, and unhappiness to the unhappy.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
As long as people love, they forgive.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The habit of constantly being cunning is a sign of limited intelligence, and it almost always happens that he who resorts to cunning to cover himself in one place is revealed in another.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Separation weakens light hobby, but intensifies great passion, just as the wind extinguishes a candle, but fans the fire.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Fate is considered blind mainly by those to whom it does not bestow good luck.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Stubbornness is born of the limitations of our mind: we are reluctant to believe what is beyond our horizons.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A person is never as unhappy as he thinks, or as happy as he wants.
Francois La Rochefoucauld
A person is never as happy as he wants, and as unhappy as he thinks.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To justify ourselves in our own eyes, we often convince ourselves that we are unable to achieve our goal; in fact, we are not powerless, but weak-willed.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To comprehend the world around us, we need to know it in all its details, and since these details are almost countless, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A clear mind gives the soul what health gives the body.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Taking care of your health with too strict a regime is a very boring disease.
What most enlivens a conversation is not intelligence, but trust.
Most women give up not because their passion is great, but because their weakness is great. Therefore, enterprising men usually have success.
Most people in conversations respond not to other people's judgments, but to their own thoughts.
Most people who consider themselves kind are only condescending or weak.
There are situations in life from which only stupidity can help you get out.
In great things, it is not so much about creating circumstances as using those that are available.
Great thoughts come from great feeling.
Majesty is an incomprehensible quality of the body, invented in order to hide the shortcomings of the mind.
There are more flaws in a person's character than there are in his mind.
Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.
In friendship and love, we are often happier with what we do not know than with what we know.
Where there is hope, there is also fear: fear is always full of hope, hope is always full of fear.
Pride does not want to be in debt, and pride does not want to pay.
They give advice, but do not have the prudence to use it.
If we were not overcome by pride, we would not complain about pride in others.
If you want to have enemies, try to outdo your friends.
If you want to please others, you need to talk about what they love and what touches them, avoid arguing about things they don’t care about, rarely ask questions and never give reason to think that you are smarter.
There are people who are attracted by vices, and others who are disgraced even by virtues.
There are laudable reproaches, just as there are accusatory praises.
Envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those who are envied.
Grace is to the body what common sense is to the mind.
Some people fall in love only because they have heard about love.
Other shortcomings, if used skillfully, shine brighter than any advantages.
True love is like a ghost: everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
No matter how uncertain and diverse the world is, it is, however, always characterized by a certain secret connection and clear order, which are created by providence, forcing everyone to take their place and follow their destiny.
As soon as a fool praises us, he no longer seems so stupid to us.
How often do people use their minds to do stupid things.
When vices leave us, we try to convince ourselves that it was we who left them.
Whoever is cured of love first is always cured more completely.
He who has never committed folly is not as wise as he thinks.
He who is too zealous in small things usually becomes incapable of great things.
Flattery is a counterfeit coin, kept in circulation by our vanity.
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice is forced to pay to virtue.
A lie sometimes pretends to be the truth so cleverly that not to succumb to deception would mean betraying common sense.
Laziness quietly undermines our aspirations and dignity.
It is easier to know people in general than one person in particular.
It is easier to neglect profit than to give up a whim.
People usually slander not out of bad intentions, but out of vanity.
Human quarrels would not last so long if all the blame were on one side.
The only reason lovers don't get bored with each other is because they talk about themselves all the time.
Love, like fire, knows no rest: it ceases to live as soon as it ceases to hope and fear.
People of small minds are sensitive to petty insults; people of great intelligence notice everything and are not offended by anything.
Close-minded people usually condemn what goes beyond their horizons.
Human passions are just different inclinations of human selfishness.
You can give another reasonable advice, but you cannot teach him reasonable behavior.
We rarely fully understand what we really want.
We are so intolerant of other people's vanity because it hurts our own.
We readily admit to small shortcomings, wanting to say that we do not have more important ones.
We try to be proud of those shortcomings from which we do not want to improve.
We consider as sane only those people who agree with us on everything.
We are funny not so much by the qualities that we possess, but by those that we try to show without having them.
We admit our shortcomings only under the pressure of vanity.
We most often misjudge maxims that prove the falsity of human virtues because our own virtues always seem true to us.
What gives us joy is not what surrounds us, but our attitude towards our surroundings.
It is more pleasant for us to see not those people who do good to us, but those to whom we do good.
Not trusting friends is more shameful than being deceived by them.
You cannot achieve a high position in society without having at least some merits.
A man who has never been in danger cannot be held accountable for his bravery.
Our wisdom is as subject to chance as our wealth.
Not a single flatterer flatters as skillfully as self-love.
Hatred and flattery are pitfalls against which the truth is broken.
The equanimity of the sages is just the ability to hide their feelings in the depths of their hearts.
There are no more intolerable fools than those who are not entirely devoid of intelligence.
There is nothing stupider than the desire to always be smarter than everyone else.
Nothing interferes with naturalness more than the desire to appear natural.
Having several vices prevents us from giving in entirely to one of them.
It is equally difficult to please both someone who loves very much and someone who does not love at all.
A person's merits should be judged not by his good qualities, but by how he uses them.
It is easiest to deceive a person when he wants to deceive us.
Self-interest blinds some, opens the eyes of others.
We judge the merits of people by their attitude towards us.
Sometimes a person is as little like himself as he is like others.
Having lost hope of discovering intelligence in those around us, we ourselves no longer try to preserve it.
Betrayals are most often committed not out of deliberate intention, but out of weakness of character.
The habit of constantly being cunning is a sign of limited intelligence, and it almost always happens that someone who resorts to cunning to cover himself in one place is revealed in another.
A sign of a person's true dignity is that even envious people are forced to praise him.
Decency is the least important of all the laws of society and the most revered.
The joys and misfortunes we experience do not depend on the size of the incident, but on our sensitivity.
The greatest harm the enemy can do to us is to accustom our hearts to hatred.
The bravest and most reasonable people- these are those who, under any pretext, avoid thoughts of death.
With our mistrust we justify the deception of others.
Hiding our true feelings is more difficult than pretending to be non-existent.
Compassion weakens the soul.
Our enemies' judgments about us are closer to the truth than our own.
The happy or unhappy state of people depends on physiology no less than on fate.
Happiness seems so blind to no one as to those to whom it has never smiled.
Those who have experienced great passions then spend their entire lives rejoicing in their healing and grieving over it.
Only by knowing our fate in advance could we vouch for our behavior.
Only great people have great vices.
Anyone who thinks that he can do without others is greatly mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him is even more mistaken.
The moderation of people who have reached the pinnacle of success is the desire to appear above their fate.
A smart person can be in love like crazy, but not like a fool.
We have more power than will, and we often, just to justify ourselves in our own eyes, find many things impossible for us.
A person who doesn't like anyone is much more unhappy than someone who doesn't like anyone.
To become a great man, you need to be able to skillfully use everything that fate offers.
A clear mind gives the soul what health gives the body.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Gratitude is simply a secret hope for further approval.
As long as we strive to help people, we will rarely encounter ingratitude.
It is a small misfortune to serve an ungrateful person, but a great misfortune is to accept a service from a scoundrel.
As punishment for original sin, God allowed man to create an idol out of selfishness, so that it would torment him on all paths of life.
There are quite a lot of people who despise wealth but give little of it away.
What a boring disease it is to protect your health with an overly strict regime.
Why do we remember in every detail what happened to us, but are unable to remember how many times we told the same person about it?
Petty minds have the gift of saying a lot and saying nothing.
Bodily pain is the only evil that reason can neither weaken nor heal.
Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy.
Magnanimity is the spirit of pride and the surest means of receiving praise.
Generosity is quite accurately defined by its name; Moreover, it can be said that it is the common sense of pride and the most worthy path to good fame.
Having ceased to love, we rejoice when they cheat on us, thereby freeing us from the need to remain faithful.
In serious matters, one should be concerned not so much with creating favorable opportunities as with not missing them.
Our enemies are much closer to the truth in their judgments about us than we are ourselves.
Arrogance is, in essence, the same pride that loudly declares its presence.
There is nothing stupider than the desire to always be smarter than everyone else.
There are no more intolerable fools than those who are not entirely devoid of intelligence.
Pride is common to all people; the only difference is how and when they manifest it.
Pride always recovers its losses and loses nothing even when it gives up vanity.
Pride does not want to be a debtor, and pride does not want to pay.
Pride, having played human comedy all the roles in a row and, as if tired of his tricks and transformations, suddenly appears with open face, arrogantly tearing off his mask.
If we were not overcome by pride, we would not complain about the pride of others.
It is not kindness, but pride that usually prompts us to admonish people who have committed wrongdoings.
The most dangerous consequence of pride is blindness: it supports and strengthens it, preventing us from finding means that would ease our sorrows and help us heal from vices.
Pride has a thousand faces, but the most subtle and the most deceptive of them is humility.
Luxury and excessive sophistication predict certain death for the state, because they indicate that all private individuals care only about their own good, without caring at all about the public good.
The highest virtue is to do in solitude what people usually dare to do only in the presence of many witnesses.
The highest valor and insurmountable cowardice are extremes that are very rare. Between them, in a vast space, are located all sorts of shades of courage, as varied as human faces and characters. the fear of death to some extent limits valor.
The highest virtue is to do in solitude what men dare to do only in the presence of many witnesses.
For simple soldier valor is a dangerous craft that he undertakes to earn food for himself.
Everyone praises their kindness, but no one dares to praise their intelligence.
Where the end of good is, there is the beginning of evil, and where the end of evil is, there is the beginning of good.
Only the person who has the strength of character to sometimes be evil is worthy of praise for kindness; otherwise, kindness most often speaks only of inactivity or lack of will.
Everyone looks at his debt as an annoying overlord from whom he would like to get rid of.
The evil we cause brings upon us less hatred and persecution than our virtues.
The surest sign of innate high virtues is the absence of innate envy.
It is more shameful not to trust friends than to be deceived by them.
Not noticing the cooling of friends means valuing their friendship little.
Appreciate not what good your friend does, but appreciate his willingness to do good to you.
The heat of friendship warms the heart without burning it.
We are so fickle in friendship because it is difficult to know the properties of a person’s soul and easy to know the properties of the mind.
Love for the soul of the lover means the same as the soul means for the body that it spiritualizes.
Pity is nothing more than a shrewd anticipation of disasters that could befall us.
A far-sighted person must determine a place for each of his desires and then implement them in order. Our greed often disrupts this order and forces us to pursue so many goals at the same time that in the pursuit of trifles we miss the essential.
We are afraid of everything, as mortals should be, and we want everything, as if we had been awarded immortality.
Before you strongly desire something, you should inquire whether the current owner of what you want is very happy.
Women can overcome their passion rather than their coquetry.
There are many women in the world who have never had a single love affair, but there are very few who had only one.
A woman in love is more likely to forgive a large indiscretion than a small infidelity.
There are situations in life from which you can only get out of it with a fair amount of recklessness.
Moderation in life is similar to abstinence in food: I would eat more, but I’m afraid of getting sick.
They envy only those with whom they do not hope to be equal.
Our envy always lives longer than the happiness we envy.
Envy is even more incomparable than hatred.
What a boring disease it is to protect your health with an overly strict regime!
The misconception of the stingy is that they consider gold and silver to be goods, when they are only means for acquiring goods.
The desire to talk about ourselves and show our shortcomings only from the side from which it is most beneficial for us is the main reason for our sincerity.
The truth is not as beneficial as its appearance is harmful.
No flatterer flatters as skillfully as self-love.
Pride never acts as a hypocrite so skillfully as when hiding under the guise of humility.
The highest skill is to know the true price of everything.
Behind the aversion to lying is often hidden a hidden desire to give weight to our statements and to inspire reverent confidence in our words.
As long as we love, we know how to forgive.
True love is like a ghost: everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
No matter how pleasant love is, its external manifestations still give us more joy than love itself.
There is only one love, but there are thousands of counterfeits.
Love, like fire, knows no rest: it ceases to live as soon as it ceases to hope and fear.
Love covers with its name the most diverse human relationships, supposedly connected with it, although in fact it participates in them no more than rain in the events taking place in Venice.
Many would never fall in love if they had not heard about love.
It is equally difficult to please both someone who loves very much and someone who no longer loves at all.
The one who is cured of love first is always cured more completely.
Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.
There are people with merits, but disgusting, while others, although with shortcomings, are sympathetic.
There are people who are destined to be fools: they do stupid things not only because at will, but also by the will of fate.
Truly clever people All their lives they pretend that they abhor cunning, but in fact they simply reserve it for exceptional cases that promise exceptional benefits.
Only people with a strong character can be truly soft: for others, apparent softness is in reality just weakness, which easily turns into grumpiness.
No matter how much people boast of the greatness of their deeds, the latter are often the result not of great plans, but simply by chance.
When people love, they forgive.
People who believe in their own merits consider it their duty to be unhappy in order to convince others and themselves that fate has not yet rewarded them what they deserve.
People sometimes call friendship time together transmission, mutual assistance in business, exchange of services. In a word - a relationship where selfishness hopes to gain something.
People could not live in society if they did not lead each other by the nose.
People not only forget benefits and insults, but even tend to hate their benefactors and forgive offenders.
People often boast of the most criminal passions, but no one dares to admit to envy, a timid and bashful passion.
Human affection has the peculiarity of changing with changes in happiness.
Human quarrels would not last so long if all the blame were on one side.
A wise man is happy, content with little, but for a fool nothing is enough; that's why almost all people are unhappy.
Sometimes revolutions take place in society that change both its destinies and the tastes of people.
What people call virtue is usually only a ghost created by their desires and bearing such a high name so that they can follow their desires with impunity.
Moderation happy people stems from the peace of mind bestowed by unfailing good fortune.
Although the destinies of people are very different, a certain balance in the distribution of goods and misfortunes seems to equalize them among themselves.
The world is ruled by fate and whim.
Youth changes its tastes due to hot blood, and the old man retains his due to habit.
Young men often think that they are natural, when in fact they are simply ill-mannered and rude.
If great art is required to speak out at the right time, then no small art lies in remaining silent at the right time.
For those who do not trust themselves, the wisest thing to do is to remain silent.
Wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body.
It is much easier to show wisdom in the affairs of others than in your own.
The collapse of all a person's hopes is pleasant to both his friends and his enemies.
IN Everyday life Our shortcomings sometimes seem more attractive than our advantages.
Impotence is the only flaw that cannot be corrected.
Majesty is an incomprehensible quality of the body, invented in order to hide the lack of intelligence.
Feigned importance is a special manner of behaving, invented for the benefit of those who have to hide their lack of intelligence.
If we didn’t have shortcomings, we wouldn’t be so pleased to notice them in our neighbors.
The secret pleasure of knowing that people see how unhappy we are often reconciles us with our misfortunes.
With our mistrust we justify the deception of others.
We love to judge people for the same things they judge us for.
Peace cannot be found anywhere for those who have not found it in themselves.
The highest sanity of the least sane people consists in the ability to obediently follow the reasonable instructions of others.
Having several vices prevents us from giving in entirely to one of them.
Our actions seem to be born under a lucky or unlucky star; they owe it to her for the most part praise or blame that falls to their lot.
We should not be offended by people who have hidden the truth from us: we ourselves constantly hide it from ourselves.
Betrayals are most often committed not out of deliberate intention, but out of weakness of character.
It is easier to neglect profit than to give up a whim.
Our whims are much more bizarre than the whims of fate.
The wind blows out the candle, but fans the fire.
Nature, in caring for our happiness, not only intelligently arranged the organs of our body, but also gave us pride, apparently in order to save us from the sad consciousness of our imperfection.
It is never more difficult to speak well than when it is shameful to remain silent.
Separation weakens a slight infatuation, but intensifies a greater passion, just as the wind extinguishes a candle, but fans the fire.
What praises are not given to prudence! However, it is not able to protect us even from the most insignificant vicissitudes of fate.
Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.
Jealousy is to some extent reasonable and just, for it wants to preserve our property or what we consider to be such, while envy is blindly indignant at the fact that our neighbors also have some property.
Jealousy feeds on doubt; it dies or goes berserk as soon as doubt turns into certainty.
Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.
Modesty is the worst form of vanity
Few people are given the ability to comprehend what death is; in most cases, people go for it not out of deliberate intention, but out of stupidity and established custom, and people most often die because they cannot resist death.
Neither the sun nor death should be looked at point-blank.
It's better to laugh without being happy than to die without laughing.
You can give advice, but you cannot give the mind to use it.
Most often, compassion is the ability to see our own in the misfortunes of others; it is a premonition of disasters that can befall us. We help people so that they in turn help us; Thus, our services are reduced simply to the benefits that we do to ourselves in advance.
The fairness of a moderate judge only testifies to his love for his high position.
For most people, the love of justice is simply the fear of being subjected to injustice.
The love of justice is born of the liveliest anxiety, lest someone take away our property from us; It is this that motivates people to so carefully protect the interests of their neighbors, to respect them so much, and to so diligently avoid unjust actions. This fear forces them to be content with the benefits granted to them by birthright or the whim of fate, and without it, they would constantly raid other people's possessions.
Old people love to give good advice because they are no longer capable of setting bad examples.
Old age is hell for women.
The strength of all our passions depends on how cold or hot our blood is.
Passions are the only speakers whose arguments are always convincing.
We evaluate everything that fate sends us depending on our mood.
It is more difficult to behave with dignity when fate is favorable than when it is hostile.
Fate arranges everything for the benefit of those whom it protects.
Fate sometimes so skillfully selects various human misdeeds that virtues are born from them.
Fate is considered blind mainly by those to whom it does not bestow good luck.
Only by knowing our fate in advance could we vouch for our behavior in advance.
A person's happiness and misfortune depend as much on his character as on his fate.
How can we demand that someone keep our secret if we ourselves cannot keep it?
There are so many varieties of vanity that it’s not worth counting.
Self-confidence forms the basis of our confidence in others.
The mind sometimes serves us only to boldly do stupid things.
Courtesy of mind is the ability to think with dignity and refinement.
Good taste speaks not so much of intelligence as of clarity of judgment.
Stubbornness is born of the limitations of our mind: we are reluctant to believe what is beyond our horizons.
Philosophy triumphs over the sorrows of the past and future, but the sorrows of the present triumph over philosophy.
We do not have enough strength of character to obediently follow all the dictates of reason.
You can be more cunning than another, but you cannot be more cunning than everyone else.
There is a continuous change of passions in the human heart, and the extinction of one of them almost always means the triumph of the other.
It is much easier to get to know a person in general than someone in particular.
No matter what advantages nature bestows on a person, she can create a hero out of him only by calling on fate to help.
Can a person say with confidence what he wants in the future if he is not able to understand what he wants now?
A man's merits should be judged not by his great merits, but by how he applies them.
Self-love is a person’s love for himself and for everything that constitutes his good.
A person is never as happy or as unhappy as he seems to himself.
A person who is incapable of committing a great crime finds it difficult to believe that others are fully capable of it.
It is more difficult to hide our true feelings than to portray non-existent ones.
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Decency is the least important duty, and the most strictly observed of all others.
Only those who deserve it are afraid of contempt.
The thirst to deserve the praise lavished upon us strengthens our virtue; thus, praise of our intelligence, valor and beauty makes us smarter, more valiant and more beautiful.
Grace is to the body what common sense is to the mind.
We are usually driven to make new acquaintances not so much by fatigue from old ones or love of change, but by dissatisfaction that people we know well do not admire us enough, and the hope that people we don’t know much will admire us more.
He who is not capable of great things is scrupulous in detail.
Affectionateness often stems from a vain mind that seeks praise, rather than from a pure heart.
It is not enough to have outstanding qualities, you also need to be able to use them.
We scold ourselves only to be praised.
We are always afraid to show ourselves to the eyes of the one we love, after we happened to be dragged on the side.
Our pride suffers more when our tastes are criticized than when our views are condemned.
It is a mistake to believe that we can do without others, but it is even more mistaken to think that others could not do without us.
Truly dexterous is the one who knows how to hide his dexterity.
Praise is useful if only because it strengthens us in virtuous intentions.
Before we dedicate our hearts to achieving any goal, let us see how happy those who have already achieved that goal are.
The moderation of one whom fate favors is usually either the fear of being ridiculed for arrogance, or the fear of losing what has been acquired.
Moderation is the fear of envy or contempt, which becomes the lot of anyone who is blinded by his own happiness; this is vain boasting of the power of the mind.
To justify ourselves in our own eyes, we often convince ourselves that we are unable to achieve our goals. In fact, we are not powerless, but weak-willed.
I want to eat and sleep.
Recklessness accompanies us all our lives; If someone seems wise to us, this only means that his follies correspond to his age and position.
Prudence and love are not made for each other: as love increases, prudence decreases.
Only those who deserve it are afraid of contempt.
What enlivens conversations most is not intelligence, but mutual trust.
Most women give up not because their passion is strong, but because their weakness is great. This is why enterprising men are usually so successful, even though they are by no means the most attractive.
Most honest women are hidden treasures that are intact only because no one has yet looked for them.
Having been deceived by friends, we can indifferently accept the manifestations of their friendship, but we must sympathize with them in their misfortunes.
There is a kind of love that, in its highest manifestation, leaves no room for jealousy.
There are situations in life that can only be extricated with a fair amount of recklessness.
In great things one must try not so much to create events as to take advantage of those that present themselves.
In red tape there is everything except love.
In friendship, as in love, what we don’t know more often brings happiness than what we know.
Politeness is the desire to always be treated politely and be known as a courteous person.
Generosity neglects everything in order to take possession of everything.
Generosity is a noble effort of pride, with the help of which a person masters himself, thereby mastering those around him.
Majesty is an incomprehensible trick of the body, invented to hide the shortcomings of the mind.
The greatest miracle of love is that it cures coquetry.
The greatest of all flatterers is self-love.
The greatest feat of friendship is not to show a friend our shortcomings, but to open his eyes to his own.
The surest sign of high virtues is not to know envy from birth.
A woman in love would rather forgive a major indiscretion than a small infidelity.
IN love adventures there is everything except love.
The qualities that people possess are not as funny as those that they claim to have.
It is just as reasonable to pay tribute to one's virtues in private as it is ridiculous to extol them in the presence of others.
Abstinence in eating is born either out of concern for health, or inability to eat much.
The basis of so-called generosity is usually vanity, which is dearer to us than everything we give.
In everyday life, our shortcomings sometimes seem more attractive than our advantages.
There is more selfishness in jealousy than love.
Everyone complains about their memory, but no one complains about their mind.
Everyone knows enough that it is not proper for a man to talk about his wife, but it is not enough known that it is even less proper for him to talk about himself.
Everyone loves to solve others, but no one likes to be solved.
In serious matters, one should be concerned not so much about creating favorable opportunities as about not missing them.
All passions generally make us make mistakes, but the funniest ones are made by love.
Everyone wants to gain fame, but no one wants to lose their life; Therefore, brave men show no less resourcefulness and intelligence in order to avoid death than crook-makers do in order to increase their fortune.
The only thing that usually prevents us from completely indulging in one vice is that we have several of them.
Everyone praises his own heart, but no one dares to give good review about your mind.
While smart people are able to express a lot in a few words, narrow-minded people, on the contrary, have the ability to talk a lot - and say nothing.
There are more flaws in a person's character than there are in his mind.
The highest virtue is to do in solitude what men dare to do only in the presence of many witnesses.
The highest skill is to know the true price of everything.
Where there is hope, there is also fear: fear is always full of hope, hope is always full of fear.
A genius has no years - he overcomes everything that stops ordinary minds.
A fool cannot be kind: he has too few brains for that.
It is most difficult to speak precisely when it is a shame to remain silent.
It is much easier to know a person in general than any person in particular.
Pride does not want to be in debt, and pride does not want to pay.
Pride is common to all people: the only difference is where and when they show it.
Pride often fuels envy in us, and that same pride often helps us cope with it.
The ardor, which grows over the years, already borders on recklessness.
A big name does not exalt, but only humiliates those who do not know how to wear it with honor.
In order to take good advice from others, sometimes it takes no less intelligence than to give good advice to yourself.
The longevity of our passions is no more dependent on us than the longevity of life.
It is more difficult to behave with dignity when fate is favorable than when it is hostile.
If we did not flatter ourselves, we would not be spoiled by the flattery of others.
If we were not overcome by pride, we would not complain about the pride of others.
If someone does good to us, we are obliged to patiently endure the evil caused by this person.
If we judge love by its ordinary manifestations, it is more like enmity than friendship.
If you want to please others, you need to talk about what they love and what touches them, avoid arguing about things they don’t care about, rarely ask questions and never give reason to think that you are smarter.
There are people who are destined to be fools: they do stupid things not only of their own free will, but also by the will of fate.
There are people so flighty and frivolous that they cannot have either major shortcomings or genuine advantages.
There are people who are so absorbed in themselves that, having fallen in love, they manage to think more about own love than about the subject of your passion.
The desire to arouse pity or admiration is what often forms the basis of our frankness.
A woman remains faithful to her first lover for a long time, unless she takes a second one.
It is easier for a woman to overcome her passion than her coquetry.
Women are not aware of the vastness of their coquetry.
Envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those who are envied.
Evil, like good, has its heroes.
Abuse of cunning indicates a limited mind; people who try to cover their nakedness in this way in one place inevitably expose themselves in another.
Refinement of mind is reflected in the ability to subtly flatter.
Grace is to the body what common sense is to the mind.
Sometimes people think they hate flattery, when they only hate one form or another.
Sometimes it is not so painful for us to submit to the coercion of others as it is to force ourselves to do something.
Other virtues are similar to sight or hearing: people deprived of these virtues are not able to see and appreciate them in others.
Some people repel, despite all their merits, while others attract, despite all their shortcomings.
Other people are like bank notes, which are accepted according to the exchange rate, and not at their nominal price.
Other shortcomings, if used skillfully, shine brighter than any advantages.
Some reproaches sound like praise, but some praise is worse than slander.
Sincerity is sincerity. Few people have this quality.
True love is like a ghost: everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
Truly noble people never boast about anything.
True eloquence is the ability to say everything that is needed and no more than is needed.
Truly clever people pretend all their lives that they abhor cunning, but in fact they simply reserve it for exceptional cases that promise exceptional benefits.
Only people with a strong character can be truly gentle; for the rest, apparent softness is most often just weakness, which easily turns into embitterment.
Truth is the fundamental principle and essence of beauty and perfection; Only that which, having everything it ought to have, is truly such as it ought to be is beautiful and perfect.
A true friend is the greatest of blessings and at the same time the blessing that one least thinks about acquiring.
As rare as true love is, true friendship is even rarer.
No matter how insightful a person is, he cannot comprehend all the evil that he creates.
No matter how much people boast of the greatness of their deeds, the latter are often the result not of great plans, but of simple chance.
How natural and at the same time how deceptive is a person’s belief that he is loved!
No matter what praises are lavished on us, we do not find anything new in them for ourselves.
How few old people in the world know the art of being old!
It is precisely those people who always want to be right at all costs who are most often wrong.
As soon as a fool praises us, he no longer seems so stupid to us.
How often do people use their minds to do stupid things.
When a woman falls in love for the first time, she loves her lover; in the future she loves only love.
When people no longer love each other, it is difficult for them to find a reason to separate.
When we manage to deceive others, they rarely seem to us as fools as we appear to ourselves when others manage to deceive us.
When vices leave us, we try to convince ourselves that it was we who left them.
When a person loves, he often doubts what he believes in most.
Kings treat people like coins: they assign a value to them at will, and they have to be valued according to the exchange rate, and not at the actual price.
The collapse of all a person's hopes is pleasant to both his friends and his enemies.
As people get older, they become more reckless—and wiser.
As we age, mental defects become more and more noticeable, as do defects in appearance.
He who has never committed folly is not as wise as he thinks.
Those who love very much do not notice for a long time that they are no longer loved.
He who is too zealous in small things usually becomes incapable of great things.
The one who doesn't like anyone is much more unhappy than the one who doesn't like anyone.
It is much more useful to study not books, but people.
Easy behavior is the least drawback women lung behavior.
It is easier to neglect profit than to give up a whim.
Flattery is a counterfeit coin that circulates only because of our vanity.
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice is forced to pay to virtue.
It is not those people who do not achieve their goal who are deprived of insight, but those who pass by it.
Any passion pushes you to make mistakes, but love pushes you to the stupidest ones.
The only reason lovers never get bored with each other is because they talk about themselves all the time. There is only one love, but there are thousands of counterfeits.
Love, like fire, knows no rest: it ceases to live as soon as it ceases to hope or fear.
It is most correct to compare love with fever: the severity and duration of both do not depend in the least on our will.
Any of our shortcomings is more forgivable than the tricks we go to to hide it.
People flirt when they pretend that any kind of flirtation is alien to them.
The people we love almost always have more power over our soul than we ourselves.
People of small minds are sensitive to petty insults; people of great intelligence notice everything and are not offended by anything.
People who are supposedly noble hide their shortcomings both from others and from themselves, but truly noble people are well aware of them and openly declare them.
Narrow-minded people usually condemn everything that goes beyond their understanding.
Unenvious people are even rarer than selfless people.
People cannot be consoled when they are deceived by their enemies or betrayed by their friends; but when they deceive themselves, they are sometimes satisfied.
People not only forget benefits and insults, but even tend to hate their benefactors and forgive offenders. The need to repay good and avenge evil seems to them like slavery, which they do not want to submit to.
People are never immeasurably good or immeasurably bad.
People usually call friendship spending time together, mutual assistance in business, exchange of services, in a word, such relationships where selfishness hopes to gain something.
People willingly remain silent unless vanity prompts them to speak.
People are rarely intelligent enough to prefer useful blame to dangerous praise.
People would rather agree to denigrate themselves than to remain silent about themselves.
People with weak character are not capable of being sincere.
People stubbornly disagree with the most sound judgments, not due to a lack of insight, but because of an excess of pride: they see that the first rows in a just cause have been dismantled, and they do not want to occupy the last ones.
People often boast of the most criminal passions, but no one dares to admit to envy, a timid and bashful passion.
People who devote themselves too much to small things usually become incapable of doing big things.
People who are free from envy are even rarer than unselfish people.
Human quarrels would not last so long if all the blame were on one side.
There are few people so wise as to prefer useful censure to harmful praise.
There are few women in the world whose dignity would outlive their beauty.
It is not enough to have outstanding qualities, you also need to be able to use them.
Small minds are too offended by little things, great minds also notice all these little things, but are never offended by them.
The world is ruled by fate and whim.
Can a person say with confidence what he wants in the future if he is not able to understand what he wants now?
You can be more cunning than another, but you cannot be more cunning than everyone else.
You can give another reasonable advice, but you cannot teach him reasonable behavior.
You can find women who have never had lovers; but it is difficult to find those who have only one.
You can have virtues and not achieve a high position in society, but you cannot achieve it without having at least some merits.
Recklessness can be cured, but a crooked mind cannot be cured.
A wise man is happy, content with little, but for a fool nothing is enough; that's why almost all people are unhappy.
Wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body.
A wise person understands that it is easier to forbid oneself from a hobby than to fight it later.
We remain beginners in many ways, regardless of age, and we often lack experience, despite the number of years we have lived.
We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.
We are afraid of everything, as mortals should be, and we want everything, as if we had been awarded immortality.
We enter different ages of our lives, like newborns, without any experience behind us, no matter how old we are.
We would win in the eyes of people if we appeared to them as we have always been and are, and not pretended to be such as we never were and never will be.
We easily forget our mistakes when they are known only to us.
We try less to be happy than to appear so.
We cannot love again those whom we once truly fell out of love.
We do not indulge entirely in one vice, most often because you have several of them.
We often treat those who burden us leniently, but we are never lenient towards those who burden us.
We don't give out anything as generously as advice.
We readily forgive our friends for shortcomings that do not affect us.
We readily admit to small shortcomings, wanting to say that we do not have more important ones.
We help people so that they, in turn, help us; Thus, our services are reduced simply to the benefits that we do to ourselves in advance.
This is why we are indignant at people who are disingenuous with us, because they consider themselves smarter than us.
We are so fickle in friendship because it is difficult to know the properties of a person’s soul and easy to know the properties of the mind.
We despise not those who have vices, but those who have no virtues.
We rarely fully understand what we really want.
We resist our passions not because we are strong, but because they are weak.
We try to take credit for those shortcomings that we do not want to correct.
We consider only those people who agree with us on everything to be sane.
We are so intolerant of other people's vanity that it hurts our own.
We are so used to pretending to others that we end up pretending to ourselves.
We usually praise others only to hear ourselves praised.
We often seek out poisoned praise, which indirectly reveals in those whom we praise faults that we do not dare point out directly.
We often stigmatize other people's shortcomings, but rarely, using their example, correct our own.
Hope, no matter how deceptive it may be, still serves to bring our life to the end along a pleasant path.
Every person, like every action, should be looked at from a certain distance.
Some can be understood by looking at them up close, while others become clear only from a distance.
What gives us joy is not what surrounds us, but our attitude towards the environment, and we are happy when we have what we love, and not what others consider worthy of love. It is easier for us to love those who hate us than those who love us more than we would like.
We like to give ourselves shortcomings that are the opposite of those we actually have; weak-willed people, for example, like to boast about their stubbornness.
We are almost always bored with those people with whom we are not supposed to be bored.
We are almost always bored with those who are bored with us.
We should only be surprised at our ability to be surprised at anything else.
There are few things in this world that are unattainable; If we had more persistence, we could find a way to almost any goal.
Mockery is often a sign of poverty of mind: it comes to the rescue when good arguments are lacking.
In the old age of love, as in the old age of years, people still live for sorrows, but no longer live for pleasures.
True friendship knows no envy, and true love knows no coquetry.
Is our peace of mind or confusion depend not so much on major events in our life, how much depends on the successful or unpleasant combination of everyday little things for us.
Our repentance is usually not so much regret for the evil we have done, but rather a fear of the evil that may be inflicted on us in return.
Our pride suffers more when our tastes are criticized than when our views are condemned. Our enemies are much closer to the truth in their judgments about us than we are ourselves.
Our virtues are most often skillfully disguised vices.
Our whims are much more bizarre than the whims of fate.
Our passions are often the product of other passions that are directly opposite to them: stinginess sometimes leads to wastefulness, and wastefulness to stinginess; people are often persistent out of weakness of character and courageous out of cowardice.
Our mind is lazier than our body.
If we didn’t have shortcomings, we wouldn’t be so pleased to notice them in our neighbors.
There are no circumstances so unfortunate that a smart person cannot derive some benefit from them, but there are no circumstances so happy that a reckless person cannot turn them against himself.
It is a small misfortune to serve an ungrateful person, but a great misfortune is to accept a service from a scoundrel.
Infidelity should kill love, and one should not be jealous when there are grounds for it: only those who try not to cause it are worthy of jealousy.
The equanimity that those sentenced to death sometimes show, as well as the contempt for death, only speaks of the fear of looking it straight in the eye; therefore, it can be said that both are for their minds like a blindfold for their eyes.
The equanimity of the sages is simply the ability to hide their feelings in the depths of their hearts.
Not every person who has known the depths of his mind has known the depths of his heart.
By not allowing our friends to look into the very depths of our hearts, we do this not so much out of distrust of them, but out of distrust of ourselves.
Not trusting friends is more shameful than being deceived by them.
Flaws are sometimes more forgivable than the means used to hide them.
Not noticing people's cooling means valuing their friendship little.
You can't like someone for long who is always smart in the same way.
A man who has never been in danger cannot be held accountable for his bravery.
Hatred and flattery are pitfalls against which the truth is broken.
Hatred towards people who have fallen into mercy is caused by love for this very mercy.
The extraordinary pleasure with which we talk about ourselves should instill in us the suspicion that our interlocutors do not at all share it.
Unyielding severity of behavior is contrary to female nature.
Often we would have to be ashamed of our most noble deeds if others knew our motives.
We should not be offended by people who have hidden the truth from us: we ourselves constantly hide it from ourselves.
It is incomparably easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy everything.
The truth is not as beneficial as its appearance is harmful.
There are no more intolerable fools than those who are not entirely devoid of intelligence.
There is no surer way to kindle passion in another than to keep the cold yourself.
There is no quality more rare than true kindness: most people who consider themselves kind are only condescending or weak.
There is nothing stupider than the desire to always be smarter than everyone else.
There are no people who, having stopped loving, would not begin to be ashamed of their past love.
In no passion does self-love reign so completely as in love; people are always ready to sacrifice the peace of a loved one in order to preserve their own.
Peace cannot be found anywhere for those who have not found it in themselves.
No amount of pretense will help hide love for a long time when it is there, or pretend it when it is not.
No imagination can come up with such a multitude of contradictory feelings that usually coexist in one human heart.
No one hurries others like lazy people: having gratified their laziness, they want to appear diligent.
No flatterer flatters as skillfully as selfishness.
Nothing interferes with naturalness more than the desire to appear natural.
You need to have a great mind to be able not to show your mental superiority.
Usually happiness comes to the happy, and unhappiness to the unhappy.
The limited nature of our minds leads to stubbornness: we are reluctant to believe what is beyond our horizons.
It is equally difficult to please both someone who loves very much and someone who no longer loves at all.
Some people suit their shortcomings, while others don’t even like their virtues.
Self-interest blinds some, opens the eyes of others.
A person's merits should be judged not by his good qualities, but by how he uses them.
Having become completely bored, we stop being bored.
The most dangerous ones are those evil people who are not entirely devoid of kindness.
It is dangerous to blame those who want to be cured of timidity for timidity.
The charm of newness in love is like the blossoming of fruit trees: it quickly fades and never returns.
As people get older, they become both dumber and smarter.
Truly dexterous is the one who knows how to hide his dexterity.
Truly extraordinary virtues are possessed by those who have managed to earn the praise of their envious people.
Ostentatious simplicity is refined hypocrisy.
As long as people love, they forgive.
As long as a person is able to do good, he is not in danger of encountering ingratitude.
Sometimes there are fools who are smart; but they are never like that with reason.
Vices are included in the composition of virtues, like poisons in the composition of medicines; prudence mixes them, weakens their effect and then skillfully uses them as a remedy against life’s adversities.
Vices of the soul are like wounds of the body: no matter how diligently they are treated, they still leave scars and can open again at any moment.
Sometimes great talents come from bad qualities.
Sometimes it is easier to tolerate the deception of someone you love than to hear the whole truth from him.
A decent woman is a hidden treasure; Having found it, a reasonable person will not boast about it.
A decent person can be in love like crazy, but not like a fool.
Constancy in love is of two kinds: we are constant or because we constantly find new qualities in our loved one, worthy of love, or because we consider constancy a duty of honor.
Constancy deserves neither praise nor blame, for it reveals the stability of tastes and feelings, independent of our will.
Only a person who has the strength of character to sometimes be evil is worthy of praise for kindness; otherwise, kindness most often speaks only of inactivity or lack of will.
Betrayals are most often committed not out of deliberate intention, but out of weakness of character.
The philosophers' contempt for wealth was caused by their innermost desire to take revenge on unjust fate for not rewarding them with the blessings of life; it was a secret remedy from the humiliations of poverty, and a roundabout way to the honor usually brought by wealth.
The habit of constantly being cunning is a sign of limited intelligence, and it almost always happens that he who resorts to cunning to cover himself in one place is revealed in another.
By admitting to small shortcomings, we thereby try to convince others that we do not have large ones.
A sign of a person's true dignity is that even those who envy him are forced to praise him.
Decency is the least important of all the laws of society and the most revered.
An example is contagious, so all the benefactors of the human race and all the villains find imitators.
We imitate good deeds out of a sense of competition, while we imitate bad deeds out of innate anger, which experience restrained and example released into the wild.
Reconciliation with enemies only speaks of fatigue from the struggle, fear of defeat and the desire to take a more advantageous position.
By pretending that we have fallen into a trap set for us, we are demonstrating a truly refined cunning, because it is easiest to deceive a person when he wants to deceive us.
For the most part, doing evil to people is not as dangerous as doing them too much good.
It is much easier to show wisdom in the affairs of others than in your own.
The pomp of funeral rites does not so much perpetuate the dignity of the dead as it pleases the vanity of the living.
The indifference of old age is no more conducive to the salvation of the soul than the ardor of youth.
Separation weakens a slight infatuation, but intensifies a greater passion, just as the wind extinguishes a candle, but fans the fire.
A jealous wife is sometimes even pleasant to her husband: at least he always hears conversations about the object of his love.
Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.
Jealousy feeds on doubt; it dies or goes berserk as soon as doubt turns into certainty.
The most bizarre folly is usually the product of the most refined mind.
The bravest and most intelligent people are those who, under any plausible pretext, try not to think about death.
Most wonderful gift, made to people after wisdom, is friendship.
Selfishness speaks all languages and plays any role - even the role of selflessness.
Self-interest drives all virtues and all vices.
With our mistrust we justify the deception of others.
Strength and weakness of the spirit are simply incorrect expressions: in reality, there is only a good or bad state of the organs of the body.
The zealous desire to appear so is a great hindrance to being smart.
Modesty enhances dignity and excuses mediocrity.
Weakness of character often consoles us in such misfortunes that reason is powerless to console.
Weakness of character is the only flaw that cannot be corrected.
The glory of great men must always be measured by the means by which it was achieved.
Hatred that is too fierce makes us inferior to those we hate.
Funny things do more damage to honor than dishonor itself.
Humility often turns out to be feigned submission, the purpose of which is to subjugate others; this is a trick of pride, humiliating itself in order to rise...
Compassion is often the ability to see our own in the misfortunes of others; it is a premonition of disasters that can befall us.
Fate should be treated like health: when it favors us, enjoy it, and when it begins to act up, wait patiently, without resorting to strong means unless absolutely necessary.
Old people love to give good advice because they are no longer capable of setting bad examples.
Old age is a tyrant who, on pain of death, forbids us all the pleasures of youth.
Old madmen are even madder than young ones.
The passions are the only speakers whose arguments are always convincing; their art is born, as it were, from nature itself and is based on immutable laws. Therefore, a simple-minded person, but carried away by passion, can convince more quickly than an eloquent, but indifferent person.
Passion often turns smart person into a fool, but no less often endows fools with intelligence.
Passions are characterized by such injustice and such self-interest that it is dangerous to trust them and one should beware of them even when they seem quite reasonable.
Fate arranges everything for the benefit of those whom it protects.
Fate corrects our shortcomings that even reason could not correct.
Fate is considered blind mainly by those to whom it does not bestow good luck.
Our enemies' judgments about us are closer to the truth than our own.
There is a degree of happiness and sorrow that goes beyond our ability to feel.
There are different cures for love, but none are reliable.
Happy people are incorrigible: fate does not punish them for their sins, and therefore they consider themselves sinless.
We experience happiness and unhappiness in proportion to our selfishness.
A person's happiness and misfortune depend as much on his character as on his fate.
The happiness of love lies in loving; People are happier when they experience passion themselves than when it is inspired.
It is just as easy to deceive yourself and not notice it, just as it is difficult to deceive another and not be exposed.
Those who have experienced great passions then spend their entire lives both rejoicing in their healing and grieving over it.
The torments of jealousy are the most painful of human torments and, moreover, the least inspiring sympathy for the one who inflicts them.
Only a coincidence of circumstances reveals our essence to others and, most importantly, to ourselves.
Only great people have great vices.
Only by knowing how to listen and respond can you be a good conversationalist.
The one who has fallen out of love is usually his own fault for not noticing it in time.
Anyone who thinks that he can do without others is greatly mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him is even more mistaken.
The one who is cured of love first is always cured more completely.
What people usually call friendship is, in essence, only an alliance, the purpose of which is the mutual preservation of benefits and the exchange of good services, the most disinterested friendship is nothing more than a deal in which our pride always expects to win something.
What we take for nobility often turns out to be disguised as ambition, which, despising small benefits, goes straight to big ones.
What we take for virtue often turns out to be a combination of selfish desires and actions, skillfully selected by fate or our own cunning; so, for example, sometimes women are chaste, and men are valiant, not at all because chastity and valor are actually characteristic of them.
Cowards usually do not realize the full force of their fear.
Vanity forces us to act contrary to our tastes much more often than the demands of reason.
Vanity, shame, and most importantly, temperament - this is what usually underlies male valor and female virtue.
For most people, the love of justice is simply the fear of being subjected to injustice.
In great people, contempt for death is caused by their blinding love of glory, and in simple people - by limitation, which does not allow them to comprehend the full depth of the misfortune that awaits them and gives them the opportunity to think about extraneous things.
Self-confidence forms the basis of our confidence in others.
Avoiding praise is asking for it to be repeated.
Human virtues, like fruits, have their season.
The mind is always a fool of the heart.
The ability to deftly use mediocre abilities does not inspire respect - and yet it often brings people more fame than true virtues.
Smart is not the one whom chance makes smart, but the one who understands what intelligence is, knows how to recognize it and admires it.
The moderation of happy people stems from the calmness bestowed by constant good fortune.
An intelligent person would often find himself in difficult situations if he were not surrounded by fools.
A limited but sound mind is ultimately not as tiresome to an interlocutor as a broad but confused mind.
The mind sometimes serves us only to make us do stupid things more boldly.
The intelligence of most women serves not so much to strengthen their prudence as to justify their recklessness.
The mind cannot play the role of the heart for long.
We have more strength than will, and we often, just to justify ourselves in our own eyes, find many things impossible for us.
We always have enough strength to endure the misfortune of our neighbor.
We do not have enough strength of character to obediently follow all the dictates of reason.
Stubbornness is the product of feeblemindedness, ignorance and arrogance.
Human characters, like some buildings, have several facades, and not all of them are pleasant to look at.
Physical labor helps to forget about moral suffering.
Philosophy triumphs over the sorrows of the past and future, but the sorrows of the present triumph over philosophy.
Cunning and betrayal only indicate a lack of dexterity.
Cunning is a sign of a narrow mind.
Good taste speaks not so much of intelligence as of clarity of judgment.
Listening well and responding well is one of the greatest perfections possible in conversation.
Although everyone considers mercy a virtue, it is sometimes generated by vanity, often by laziness, often by fear, and almost always by both.
The chastity of women is for the most part simply a concern for a good name and peace.
Most often, those people who are firmly convinced of universal affection cause hostility.
Most often, those around them are those who believe that they cannot be a burden to anyone.
A person is never as unhappy as he thinks, or as happy as he wants.
It's easier for a person to seem worthy of that a position he does not occupy than the one in which he is.
No matter how we explain our grief, most often they are based on deceived self-interest or wounded vanity.
Only that love that lurks in the depths of our heart and is unknown to us is pure and free from the influence of other passions.
To wholeheartedly praise good deeds is to take part in them to some extent.
Excessive haste in paying for a service rendered is a kind of ingratitude.
To justify ourselves in our own eyes, we often convince ourselves that we are unable to achieve our goal; in fact, we are not powerless, but weak-willed.
To become a great man, you need to be able to skillfully use everything that fate offers.
Youth is a kind of intoxication, something like a feverish mind.
Youth changes its tastes due to the ardor of feelings, but old age keeps them unchanged out of habit.
Young men often think that they are natural, when in fact they are simply ill-mannered and rude.
It is easier to know people in general than one person in particular.
No matter how deceptive hope is, it still leads us along an easy path until the end of our days.
We find several solutions to the same question not so much because our mind is very fertile, but because it is not very insightful and, instead of stopping at the very best solution, presents us indiscriminately with all the possibilities at once.
Stubbornness is born of the limitations of our mind: we are reluctant to believe what is beyond our horizons.
To enter into a conspiracy requires unshakable courage, but to bravely endure the dangers of war, ordinary courage is enough.
No matter how rare true love is, real friendship is even less common.
There are many women in the world who have never had a single love affair in their lives, but there are very few who have only had one.
There are few decent women in the world who are not sick of their virtue.
Women for the most part are so indifferent to friendship because it seems insipid to them in comparison with love.
Constancy in love is an eternal impermanence that encourages us to get carried away in turn by all the qualities of a loved one, giving preference to one of them, then to another; Thus, constancy turns out to be impermanence, but limited, that is, concentrated on one object.
A truly worthy person can be in love like a madman, but not like a fool.
Strength of character makes people resist love, but at the same time it gives this feeling ardor and duration; weak people, on the contrary, are easily ignited by passion, but almost never give themselves over to it.
Envy is even more irreconcilable than hatred.
There are people who are so self-absorbed that, having fallen in love, they manage to think more about their own love than about the object of their passion.
The thirst to deserve the praise lavished upon us strengthens our virtue; thus, praise of our intelligence, valor and beauty makes us smarter, more valiant and more beautiful.
The gratitude of most people is born of a hidden desire to achieve even greater benefits.
People's mistakes in their calculations of gratitude for services rendered occur because the pride of the giver and the pride of the recipient cannot agree on the price of the benefit.
There are successful marriages, but there are no delightful marriages.
Why do we remember in every detail what happened to us, but are not able to remember how many times we told the same person about it?
People who believe in their own merits consider it their duty to be unhappy in order to convince others and themselves that fate has not yet given them what they deserve.
Before you strongly desire something, you should inquire whether the current owner of what you want is very happy.
Our envy is always more durable than the happiness of others that we envy.
Our sincerity is largely due to the desire to talk about ourselves and put our shortcomings in a favorable light.
We admit laziness more readily than our other shortcomings; we have convinced ourselves that, without causing much damage to other virtues, it only moderates their manifestation.
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
No matter how pleasant love is, its external manifestations still give us more joy than love itself.
There are few mistakes less excusable than the means to which we resort to conceal them.
How clearly people understand their mistakes is evident from the fact that, when talking about their behavior, they always know how to present it in a noble light.
Our actions are like the lines of a burima: everyone connects them with whatever he pleases.
Sometimes, when we shed tears, we deceive not only others, but also ourselves.
Neither the sun nor death should be looked at point-blank.
Old age is hell for women.
Although the destinies of people are very different, a certain balance in the distribution of goods and misfortunes seems to equalize them among themselves.
We are tormented not so much by the thirst for happiness as by the desire to be known as lucky.
Moderation in life is similar to abstinence in food: I would eat more, but I’m afraid of getting sick.
Democracy dies not because of weak laws, but because of weak democrats.
La Rochefoucauld François: “Maxims and moral reflections” and Test: “The sayings of La Rochefoucauld”
“The talents with which God has endowed people are as diverse as the trees with which he adorned the earth, and each has special properties and bears only its own fruits. That is why the best pear tree will never give birth to even the worst apples, but the most gifted person gives in to a task, albeit an ordinary one, but given only to those who are capable of this task. And therefore, composing aphorisms without at least a little talent for an activity of this kind is no less ridiculous than expecting that bulbs will bloom in a garden bed where no bulbs are planted tulips." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld
“While intelligent people are able to express a lot in a few words, limited people, on the contrary, have the ability to talk a lot - and say nothing.” - F. La Rochefoucauld
François VI de La Rochefoucauld (French François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, September 15, 1613, Paris - March 17, 1680, Paris), Duke de La Rochefoucauld - French writer, author of works of a philosophical and moralistic nature. He belonged to the southern French family of La Rochefoucauld. Activist in the wars of the Fronde. During his father's lifetime (until 1650), he bore the title of courtesy Prince de Marcillac. Great-grandson of that François de La Rochefoucauld, who was killed on the night of St. Bartholomew.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld belonged to one of the most noble noble families in France. The military and court career for which he was destined did not require college training. La Rochefoucauld acquired his extensive knowledge already in mature age through independent reading. Arriving in 1630 to court, he immediately found himself in the thick of political intrigue.
Origin and family traditions determined his orientation - he took the side of Queen Anne of Austria against Cardinal Richelieu, who was hated by him as a persecutor of the ancient aristocracy. Participation in the struggle of these far from equal forces brought upon him disgrace, exile to his possessions and short-term imprisonment in the Bastille. After the deaths of Richelieu (1642) and Louis XIII (1643), Cardinal Mazarin, who was very unpopular among all segments of the population, came to power. The feudal nobility tried to regain their lost rights and influence. Dissatisfaction with Mazarin's rule resulted in 1648. in open rebellion against royal power - the Fronde. La Rochefoucauld accepted in it Active participation. He was closely associated with the highest-ranking frontiers - the Prince of Condé, the Duke de Beaufort and others and could closely observe their morals, selfishness, lust for power, envy, selfishness and treachery, which manifested themselves in different stages movements. In 1652 The Fronde suffered a final defeat, the authority of the royal power was restored, and the participants of the Fronde were partially bought with concessions and handouts, and partially subjected to disgrace and punishment.
La Rochefoucauld, among the latter, was forced to go to his possessions in Angoumois. It was there, far from political intrigues and passions, that he began to write his “Memoirs,” which he initially did not intend for publication. In them he gave an undisguised picture of the events of the Fronde and characteristics of its participants. At the end of the 1650s. he returned to Paris, was favorably received at court, but completely withdrew from political life. During these years, he became increasingly attracted to literature. In 1662 The Memoirs were published without his knowledge in a falsified form; he protested this publication and released the original text in the same year. La Rochefoucauld's second book, which brought him world fame- "Maxims and moral reflections", - was, like the "Memoirs", first published in a distorted form against the will of the author in 1664. In 1665, La Rochefoucauld released the first author's edition, which was followed during his lifetime by four more. La Rochefoucauld corrected and supplemented the text from edition to edition. The last lifetime edition of 1678 contained 504 maxims. In posthumous editions, numerous unpublished ones were added to them, as well as those excluded from the previous ones. "Maxims" were translated into Russian several times.
