Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, just as the wind blows out a candle and fans a fire.

The passions are the only orators which always persuade.

We like to read others but we do not like to be read.

What makes the vanity of others insupportable is that it wounds our own.

Those who 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.

We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us.

Women’s hell is old age.

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.

Intellectual blemishes, like facial ones, grow more prominent with age.

We come fresh to the different stages of life, and in each of them we are quite inexperienced, no matter how old we are.