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Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.

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
Truth
Flatter
Great
Owing
Much
Achievements
Men
Achievement
Design
Though
Chance
Often
Exalt

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Nothing is rarer than true good nature they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak.
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We always get bored with those whom we bore.
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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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In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
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We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
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Self-love is the love of a man's own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.
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Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.
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Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires.
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One may outwit another, but not all the others.
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The rust of business is sometimes polished off in a camp but never in a court.
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If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
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Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy.
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Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
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Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.
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It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them.
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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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Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
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Even women are perfect at the outset.
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The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.
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