Francois de La Rochefoucauld Use Quotations

The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

Those who have the most cunning affect all their lives to condemn cunning; that they may make use of it on some great occasion, and to some great end.

Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.

Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.

Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.

It is sometimes a point of as much cleverness to know to make good use of advice from others as to be able give good advice to oneself.

There are a great many simpletons who know themselves to be so, and who make a very cunning use of their own simplicity.

We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.

The most ingenious men continually pretend to condemn tricking--but this is often done that they may use it more conveniently themselves, when some great occasion or interest offers itself to them.

We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.

Moral severity in women is only a dress or paint which they use to set off their beauty.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.