French moralist of the era of French Classical literature and author of Maximes and Memoirs
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.
Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.