Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

Often devotion to virtue arises from sated desire.

My friends never talk to me about my poetry because they're embarrassed that I write it or they're embarrassed by what I write about which are not such extraordinarily terrifying things, but they are the state of human existence.

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.

Pride perceiving humility honorable, often borrows her cloak.

Animals don't lie. Animals don't criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.

Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present. Fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

I was never able to master the virtue of humility but I was able to master the appearance of humility.

Do something good, and people want that! Do something less good, and people want it a little less!

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. The acknowledgment of those virtues on which conscience congratulates us is a tribute that we can at any tine exact with confidence; but the celebration of those which we only feign, or desire without any vigorous endeavours to attain them, is received as a confession of sovereignty over regions never conquered, as a favourable decision of disputable claims, and is more welcome as more gratuitous.

It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies.

The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.

The word patriotism, or its equivalents and derivations, is upon everyone's lips at the present time. It is a magic word which is thought by most people to cover any multitude of sins. To be patriotic in whatever cause is tantamount to being virtuous, while no worse charge can be brought against a man in popular estimation than to say he is unpatriotic.

If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.

Where do you draw the line between a humble man who knows his own weaknesses but tries to act out virtues he hasn't quite mastered yet, and a proud man who pretends to have those virtues without the slightest intention of acquiring them?

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

People seem to think there is something inherently noble and virtuous in the desire to go for a walk.

People's lives are forever controlled by two emotions: fear and greed.

As fast as I can tell there are only two emotions that keep the world spinning year after year...One is fear. The other is desire.

There are people who...tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don't believe it! It's an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

As desire abates, generosity is born. When we are connected and present, what else is there to do but give?

- and you are truly human now. You can love, and fear, and forbid things to be what they are, and overact.

We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.