87.Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Time Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."—2 TIM. iii. 13.]

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

A weakling is incapable of sincerity.

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

Extreme boredom provides its own antidote.

— François de La Rochefoucauld

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

— François de La Rochefoucauld

How rare true love maybe, it is less so than true friendship.

— François de La Rochefoucauld

Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.

— François de La Rochefoucauld

If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.

— François de La Rochefoucauld