Author of quotes: Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Separation extinguishes petty passions and intensifies great ones, just as the wind blows out a candle and kindles a fire.

Those who have experienced great passions, then all their lives rejoice at their healing, and grieve for it.

Our mind, due to its laziness and sluggishness, is usually occupied only with what is easy or pleasant for it; this habit limits our knowledge, and no one has yet taken the trouble to enrich and expand their minds to the limits of the possible.

There is no person in the world who would not value any of his qualities much higher than a similar quality in another, even the most respected person, by him.

We often think that we are steadfast in adversity, although in reality we are only oppressed; we endure it, not daring to look at it, like cowards who are so afraid to defend themselves that they are ready to let themselves be killed.

The efforts we make not to fall in love sometimes cause us more torment than the cruelty of those with whom we have already fallen in love.

Many people, like plants, are endowed with hidden properties; only chance can discover them.

Education of young people usually boils down to rewarding out of innate selfishness.

Whatever we explain our grief, most often they are based on deceived self-interest or wounded vanity.

In war, most people risk their lives just as much as is necessary in order not to tarnish their honor; but only a few are always willing to take risks as required by the goal for which they take the risk.

Diseases of the soul return to us in the same way as diseases of the body. What we think of as recovery usually turns out to be either a short-term relief from an old affliction or the beginning of a new one.

We can say that vices await us on the path of life, like innkeepers who have to take turns stopping, and I do not think that experience will help us avoid them, even if we were given to walk this path a second time.

Sometimes impermanence comes from frivolity or immaturity of the mind, prompting a person to agree with any other opinion; but there is another kind of impermanence, more forgivable, for it is generated by aversion to the environment.

Constancy in love is an eternal inconstancy that prompts us to get carried away in turn by all the qualities of a loved one, giving preference to one of them, then another; thus, constancy turns out to be impermanence, but limited, that is, focused on one subject.