Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.

Men who retain irony are not to be trusted. They can't always resist an impulse to tickle themselves.

Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn’t trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

I wonder how it is that I’m fooling so many people, I’m doing one of the most stupid things in the world…and people seem to be falling for it.

It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.

One goes on with the blithe belief that who you really are is transparent to everybody. Then you realise, with some horror, that in fact it's not. So all you can do is keep muddying the waters a bit.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

He who says he hates every kind of flattery, and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.

Nobody really knows what they look like. The mirror shows you only what you want to see.

If I had two faces, do you think I would be wearing this one.

People create the sort of myths they want to believe about themselves.

The mirror can lie. It doesn’t show you what’s inside.

Do you remember when you told me I couldn't see myself clearly? You obviously have the same blindness

You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you?

All men think that they're nice guys. Some of them are not. Contact me for a list of names.

The cleverest trick of the Devil is that nobody believes in him. It. Her. Well, we have been very stupid.

A cunning mind emphatically delights in its own cunning, and is the ready prey of cunning.

Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy. . .

What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.

Uh, my lord, I am not actually food. You do realize this, yes?

I’ve never considered myself a femme fatale as I’ve never seduced anyone and ruined their lives. At least as far as I know.

Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble. So those on scepticism cause believers to affirm. Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, few doubtingly of scepticism.

A sense of absurdity interferes with my efforts to appear venerable.

To the generality of men you cannot give a stronger hint for them to impose upon you than by imposing upon yourself.