François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

Who lives without any madness, it is not so wise as he thinks.

Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.

Who lives without folly is not so wise as be thinks.

Youth is perpetual intoxication; it is a fever of the mind.

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.

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

Wisdom consists, not in stumbling on truth by chance but in marking, learning, and inwardly digesting it.

When a man must force himself to be faithful in his love, this is hardly better than unfaithfulness.

Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.

When a man seems to be wise, it is merely that his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.

Women can less easily surmount their coquetry than their passions.

When not prompted by vanity, we say little.

Women find it far more difficult to overcome their inclination to coquetry than to overcome their love.

When our hatred is too bitter it places us below those whom we hate.

Women in love pardon great indiscretions more easily than little infidelities.

When our vices quit us, we flatter ourselves with the belief that it is we who quit them.

Women know not the whole of their coquetry.

When the heart is still agitated by the remains of a passion, we are more ready to receive a new one than when we are entirely cured.

Women who love pardon more readily great indiscretions than little infidelities.

When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe.

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.

You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.

When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness.

You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.