LA ROCHEFOUCAULD'S MAXIMS

'The bitter and pessimistic philosophy expressed in this work was to contribute greatly to the taste of seventeenth-century France'. It strikes me as excessively cynical. The writer doesn't trust any outward behaviour whatsoever. He's always looking at the dark possibilities lying beneath. Here are some of his nuggets of wisdom:

We are never as fortunate or unfortunate as we suppose

We have no more say in the duration of our passions than in that of our lives.

Often we are taken in ourselves by some of the tears with which we have deceived others.

Love may be delightful, but even more so are the ways in which it reveals itself.

A neighbour's ruin is relished by friends and enemies alike.

Little is needed to make a wise man happy, but nothing can content a fool. That is why nearly all men are miserable.

It is far easier to stifle a first desire than to satisfy all the ensuing ones.

Some people are so shallow and frivolous that they are as far removed from having any real faults as from having any solid virtues.

The vivacity that increases with age verges on madness.

It is impossible to love for a second time anything that you have really ceased to love.

The man who lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks.

The glory of great men must always be measured against the means by which they have used to acquire it.

The vagaries of our moods are even stranger than those of fortune.

No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.

We are almost always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.