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None deserve praise for being good who have not the spirit to be bad: goodness, for the most part, is nothing but indolence or weakness of will.

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
Deserve
Fear
Indolence
Spirit
Rage
Part
Goodness
Nothing
Praise
Good
Weakness
None
Atheism

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All the passions make us commit faults love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
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History never embraces more than a small part of reality
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Taste may change, but inclination never.
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We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.
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Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.
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Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.
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We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
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It is not always for virtue's sake that women are virtuous.
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Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.
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Sometimes there are accidents in our lives the skillful extrication from which demands a little folly.
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One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.
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The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.
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The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.
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Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.
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Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.
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He is a truly virtuous man who wishes always to be open to the observation of honest men.
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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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Nature creates ability luck provides it with opportunity.
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A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon.
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