Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Almost always we are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring.”

“Истинското красноречие е в умението да се каже всичко, което е необходимо и не повече, отколкото е необходимо.”

“The desire to be pitied or to be admired often forms the greater part of our confidence.”

“Kdo žije bez jakékoliv ztřeštěnosti, není tak moudrý, jak si myslí.”

“The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind.”

“We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.”

“People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about.”

“Les défauts de l'âme sont comme les blessures du corps: quelque soin qu'on prenne de les guérir, la cicatrice paraît toujours, et elles sont à tout moment en danger de se rouvrir.”

“A weakling is incapable of sincerity.”

“Nos vertus ne sont, le plus souvent, que de vices déguisés.”

“There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand different versions.”

“Nous avons plus de paresse dans l'esprit que dans le corps.”

“Imagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person's heart.”

“Passion often makes a madman of the cleverest man, and renders the greatest fools clever.”

“L'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur.”

“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”

“In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.”

“The truest way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.”

“Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable.”

“A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.”

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

“We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire”

“Some beautiful things are more impressive when left imperfect than when than when too highly finished”

“We often forgive those who bore us, but we do not forgive those we bore”.”

“There are few things we should keenly desire if we really knew what we wanted.”

“We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring.”

“As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing. ”

“Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.”

“The defects of the mind arelike the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening.”

“Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.”

“One may outwit another, but not all the others.”

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.”

“In love we often doubt what we most believe.”

“How rare true love maybe, it is less so than true friendship.”

“Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.”

“Si nous résistons à nos passions, c'est plus par leur faiblesse que par notre force.”

“If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.”

“If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.”

“A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.”

“Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.”

“We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.”

“It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them”

“Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it. ”

“There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.”

“Second-rate minds usually condemn everything beyond their grasp.”

“We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.”

“We would often be ashamed of our best actions if the world only knew the motives behind them.”

“True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.”

“Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.”

“Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary by sense.”