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What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.
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
Virtue
Interest
Often
Assemblage
Action
Arrange
Nothing
Interests
Take
Actions
Different
Fortune
Industry
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Whatever discoveries we may have made in the regions of self-love, there still remain many unknown lands.
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Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.
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Indolence, languid as it is, often masters both passions and virtues.
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It is not always for virtue's sake that women are virtuous.
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Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Self-love makes our friends appear more or less deserving in proportion to the delight we take in them, and the measures by whichwe judge of their worth depend upon the manner of their conversing with us.
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The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride it seems to nourish and augment it it deprives them of knowledge of remedies which can solace their miseries and can cure their faults.
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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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
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Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
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The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.
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We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
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The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived is to consider yourself more cunning than others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Almost everyone takes pleasure in repaying trifling obligations, very many feel gratitude for those that are moderate but there is scarcely anyone who is not ungrateful for those that are weighty.
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It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld