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There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable 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
Great
Men
Serviceable
Valued
Recommend
Vices
Society
Nothing
Many

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The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.
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We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring.
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The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease.
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As we grow older, we increase in folly--and in wisdom.
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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.
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One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.
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We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.
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In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.
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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.
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Self-love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.
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We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.
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Οur own distrust somewhat justifies the deceit of others.
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Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.
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Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
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True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
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The wind which snuffs the candle fans the fire.
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What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.
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Nothing should lessen our satisfaction with ourselves as much as when we notice that we disapprove of something at one time that we approve of at another time.
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It is most difficult to speak when we are ashamed of being silent.
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Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.
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