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The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.
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
Real
Serviceable
Pretense
Vices
Name
Virtue
Names
Interest
Self
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
Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The temperament that produces a talent for little things is the opposite of that required for great ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A man's wits are better employed in bearing up under the misfortunes that lie upon him at present than in foreseeing those that may come upon him hereafter.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He is a truly virtuous man who wishes always to be open to the observation of honest men.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally tobe nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
