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Our enemies' opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.
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
Enemies
Enemy
Opinion
Comes
Truth
Character
Life
Closer
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.
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We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, as also to the air and complexion of the person.
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
We can be more clever than one, but not more clever than all.
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
It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There are people who would never have been in love, had they never heard love spoken of.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others.
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
Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
