Philosophy triumphs easily over past and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy.

More from François de la Rochefoucauld

• Absence diminishes commonplace passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.
• Few men are sufficiently discerning to appreciate all the evil they do.
• Humility is often only a feigned submission of which we make use to render others submissive. It is an artifice of pride which abases in order to exalt itself.
• Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.
• Interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
• Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.