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We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.

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
Accomplish
Judging
Quality
Use
Makes
Merits
Great
Qualities
Men
Merit
Judge

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Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.
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In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.
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Sometimes accidents happen in life from which we have need of a little madness to extricate ourselves successfully
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What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.
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Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.
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We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
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Esteem never makes ingrates.
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We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
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What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.
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Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.
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It is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do.
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Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.
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Happy people rarely correct their faults they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways.
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The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.
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A good woman is a hidden treasure who discovers her will do well not to boast about it.
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Youth is a continual intoxication it is the fever of reason.
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The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.
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One honor won is a surety for more.
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Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.
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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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