Friday, October 30, 2015

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims(3) by François Duc de La Rochefoucauld


Interest blinds some and makes some see.

We have not enough strength to follow all our reason.

When our hatred is too bitter it places
us below those whom we hate.

We promise according to our hopes;
we perform according to our fears.

He is a truly good man who desires always
to bear the inspection of good men.


Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue.

We believe, sometimes, that we hate flattery —
we only dislike the method.

There are foolish people who recognize their foolishness
and use it skillfully.

Nothing prevents us being natural so
much as the desire to appear so.

Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.


The praise we give to new comers into the world arises
from the envy we bear to those who are established.

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

However brilliant an action it should not be esteemed
great unless the result of a great motive.

There is often more pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies' miseries; it is to show how superior we are to them,
that we bestow on them the sign of our compassion.


In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions; so that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another.

People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one
ever dare avow her.

Pride is much the same in all men, the only difference
is the method and manner of showing it.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

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