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

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In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful.
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The good or the bad fortune of men depends not less upon their own dispositions than upon fortune.
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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.
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The only security is courage.
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Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.
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We rarely ever perceive others as being sensible, except for those who agree with us.
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One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.
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The truest mark of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.
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A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.
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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.]
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Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise.
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Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
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We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.
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The mind is always the patsy of the heart.
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More men are guilty of treason through weakness than any studied design to betray.
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In the human heart new passions are forever being born the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.
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Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.
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