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Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
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
Inspirational
Without
Witnesses
Would
Capability
World
Witness
Capable
Courage
Looking
Perfect
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives.
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We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.
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Sobriety is love of health, or inability to eat much.
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The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others.
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We often in our misfortunes take that for constancy and patience which is only dejection of mind we suffer without daring to holdup our heads, just as cowards let themselves be knocked on the head because they have not courage to strike back.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Time's chariot-wheels make their carriage-road in the fairest face.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks. [Fr., Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.]
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura Our envy always outlives the felicity of its object.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Tricks and treachery are merely proofs of lack of skill.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face--so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Gratitude is like credit it is the backbone of our relations frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are no circumstances, however unfortunate, that clever people do not extract some advantage from.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Happy people rarely correct their faults they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
