Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

Passion persuades me one way, reason another. I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse.

A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavors to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.

The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest.

Your mind is like, oh my God, I know this is wrong, but your body just gives in.

This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time ignoring his fundamental ones.

Our passion and principals are constantly in a frenzy, but begin to shift and waver, as we return to reason.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

We're supposed to do all these things which trouble us deeply because it's so against what we naturally would want to do.

The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another

Nothing is more fallacious than to expect to produce any valuable or permanent results in political projects by relying merely on the reason of men. Men are ... for the most part governed by the impulses of passion.

… people are far from acting generally according to the dictates of their interests, but oftener in consequence of their passions, though it may even prove injurious to their interests.

When a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

Experience teaches that when the will and imagination are in conflict, the imagination usually wins. What we imagine may defeat our reason and make us slaves to what we taste, see, hear, smell, and feel in the mind's eye. The body is indeed the servant of the mind.

Even the things we are certain about are only an illusion. We are born with a female side and a male side, and these two sides are always fighting and challenging each other. This is why anything we want to do, we have the other side of telling us not to do it, to be careful about it.

Two people live within me. One's a very savvy businessperson; the other's a party girl.

The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.

I believe that in every circumstance I have been able to see rather clearly the most advantageous course I could follow, which is very rarely the one I did follow.

i like to think that im helping them by hating them

A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons for his vow.

It's a funny thing... but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.

When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

My heart says one thing. My head says another. Very hard to get your heart and head together in life.

I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings.

It's very hard to look in the mirror. We all know this. It's much easier to have illusions about yourself. And in particular, when you think, well, I'm going to believe what I like, but I'll say what the powerful want, you do that over time, and you believe what you say.

Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear.