48 quotes
French author of maxims and memoirs (1613-1680)
“If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.”
"We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears."
on Truth
"Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire."
on Love
"It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all of those that follow it."
on Philosophy
on Emotion
"No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong."
"There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand different versions."
"Before we set our hearts too much upon anything let us examine how happy they are who already possess it."
on Happiness
"We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones."
on Trust
"Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy."
on Wisdom
"Though men pride themselves on their great actions often they are not the result of any great design but of chance."
"The truest way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others."
"We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think."
"Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on."
on Courage
"One forgives to the degree that one loves."
"Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue."
"We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves."
"One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines."
on Perception
"If we have not peace within ourselves it is in vain to seek it from outward sources."
on Peace
"A true friend is the greatest of all blessings and that which we take the least care of all to acquire."
on Relationships
"The intellect is always fooled by the heart."
