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However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Age: 66 †
Born: 1613
Born: September 15
Died: 1680
Died: March 17
Memoirist
Military Personnel
Writer
Paris
France
François VI
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Prince de Marcillac
François
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Great
Intention
Effect
Pass
However
Effects
Ought
Wisdom
Action
Glorious
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy.
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Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labor.
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Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.
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We forgive just so long as we love.
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Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.
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One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.
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It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly.
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Absence abates a moderate passion and intensifies a great one - as the wind blows out a candle but fans fire into flame.
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We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.
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We have not strength enough to follow our reason so far as it would carry us.
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It is difficult to define love all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love-Plus many mysteries.
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The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.
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Friendship is a traffic wherein self-love always proposes to be the gainer.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable.
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There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselves.
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Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
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Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is no accident so unfortunate but wise men will make some advantage of it, nor any so entirely fortunate but fools may turn it to their own prejudice.
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Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.
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