François de La Rochefoucauld

“Those who most 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.”

“Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.”

“A weakling is incapable of sincerity.”

“Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.”

“We forgive so long as we love.”

“There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand different versions.”

“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.”

“Passion often makes a madman of the cleverest man, and renders the greatest fools clever.”

“There are few things we should keenly desire if we really knew what we wanted.”

“Almost always we are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring.”

“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”

“Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.”

“It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.”

“He who lives without folly is not as wise as he may think.”

“True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.”

“In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.”

“Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.”

“One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.”

“We are often more treacherous through weakness than calculation”

“It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy all of those that follow it.”