Francois de La Rochefoucauld Secret Quotations

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.

The secret of pleasing in conversation is not to explain too much everything; to say them half and leave a little for divination is a mark of the good opinion we have of others, and nothing flatters their self-love more.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secrecy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last forever.

The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

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

The applause we give those who are new to society often proceeds from a secret envying of those already established.

It is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that that will ever give ground or regret.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, as also to the air and complexion of the person.

That conduct often seems ridiculous the secret reasons of which are wise and solid.