# La Rochefoucauld's best maxims

The sharpest maxims from the Reflections or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665), on self-love, virtue and love.

- 47 votes · 14 items
- Aug 27, 2021 · zen.tranquille
- https://even.best/en/l/2099/la-rochefoucauld-s-best-maxims

## Top 14

1. **We give nothing so freely as advice.** (5 · ▲6 ▼1) — Maxim 110.
2. **Some people would never have fallen in love if they had never heard of love.** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Maxim 136.
3. **Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Maxim 26.
4. **He who lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Maxim 209.
5. **Our virtues are, most often, only vices in disguise.** (3 · ▲5 ▼2) — The epigraph of the Maxims.
6. **We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Maxim 19.
7. **If we had no faults, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Maxim 31.
8. **Truth does not do as much good in the world as its appearances do harm.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Maxims.
9. **Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Maxim 218.
10. **Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills, but present ills triumph over it.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — Maxim 22.
11. **Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Maxim 2.
12. **The constancy of the wise consists in keeping their agitation locked in their hearts.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Maxims.
13. **One keeps one's first lover a long time, when one doesn't take a second.** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — Maxims.
14. **Only great men can have great faults.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Maxim 190.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.