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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.
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
Fail
Succeed
Failing
Rather
Means
Mean
Impracticable
Things
Application
Men
Perseverance
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is as common for tastes to change as it is uncommon for traits of character.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Death, like the sun, cannot be looked at steadily.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are no events so disastrous that adroit men do not draw some advantage from them, nor any so fortunate that the imprudent cannot turn to their own prejudice.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Envy is more incapable of reconciliation than hatred is.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Folly pursues us at all periods of our lives. If someone seems wise it is only because his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.
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
It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Penetration has an air of divination it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are few people who would not be ashamed of being loved when they love no longer.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Gallantry of mind consists in saying flattering things in an agreeable manner.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He that fancies such a sufficiency in himself that he can live without all the world is greatly mistaken but he that imagines himself so necessary that other people cannot live without him is a great deal more mistaken.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Esteem never makes ingrates.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
