Author of quotes: Francois de La Rochefoucauld. Page 5

What we take for the nobility, is often disguised ambition, which, despising petty gain, goes directly to big.

What we take for virtue is often a combination of selfish desires and actions, skillfully chosen by destiny or by our own cunning; for example, sometimes women are chaste and men brave not because they are really peculiar chastity and valor.

It is known that it is unbecoming of a man to talk about his wife, but little is known that even less fit for him to talk about himself.

Just those people who at any cost want always to be right, most often wrong.

There are no circumstances so unfortunate that a clever man could not derive any benefit, but does not happen and so happy that reckless couldn't turn them against themselves.

The wise man happy, satisfied with little, and the fool just a little; that's why almost all people are miserable.

Happy people are incorrigible: the fate not punish them for their sins, and so they believe themselves sinless.

Tastes change as often as it is rarely change of the inclination.

In old age men become more foolish and wiser.

The old faults of the mind are becoming more noticeable as defects of appearance.

In velocette is anything but love.

Sometimes people think they hate flattery, while they hate only one or the other of its form.

Flattery is false coin that has circulated only because of our vanity.

If we did not flatter ourselves, we not to spoil someone else's flattery.