Rochefoucauld, François de La

All passions lead us to make mistakes, but love to the most ridiculous

Love, judged by its effects, has more hate in it than friendship

Envy is more implacable than hate

One cannot look straight in the face of the sun and death

The desire to appear smart often prevents one from becoming so

Jealousy is always born with love, but it doesn't always die with it

The passions are the only speakers that always convince

Philosophy easily conquers past and future evils, but it conquers present ones

True eloquence consists in saying what pertains to the point, and only that

There is laudatory censure and reproving praise

There are good marriages, but then they are not pleasant

It is with true love as with apparitions: everyone speaks of them, but few have seen them

Usually one praises in order to be praised

The older you get, the more foolish and wiser you become

Everyone complains about their memory, nobody about their intellect

One is never as happy, nor as unhappy as one imagines

Some people only matter in the world because their mistakes are society's mistakes

Nothing prevents us from being natural more than trying to appear that way

It is often impossible to indulge in a single vice because we have several

Many people despise wealth, but few are strong enough to renounce it

If you don't find peace within yourself, there is no use looking for it anywhere else

If we didn't have flaws, we wouldn't take so much pleasure in discovering them in others