We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.
Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.
I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I would be without it.
We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.
Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe.
We pardon to the extent that we love.
Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference.
Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.
We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.
The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment.
We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.
There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly.
Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.
We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.
Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.
There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.
Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
