“Everyone speaks well of his heart; no one dares speak well of his mind.”

— François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims, Maxim 98, 1665–1678

About François de La Rochefoucauld

1613 – 1680

French moralist, author of the "Maxims" (1665).

“Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.”

“Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise.”

“Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.”

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

“There is the love of knowing without the love of learning; the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind.”

“In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it.”

“When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.”

“The heart of life is a sphere quiet and serene, and the star that shines therein is fixed for evermore.”

“The mind weighs and measures but it is the spirit that reaches the heart of life and embraces the secret.”