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Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
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
Tongue
Parts
Interest
Disinterestedness
Speak
Tongues
Play
Bureaucracy
Self
Speaks
Even
Manner
Plays
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
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When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.
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Old people are fond of giving good advice it consoles them for no longer being capable of setting a bad example.
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Nothing is rarer than true good nature they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak.
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The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
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When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness.
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It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love.
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Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.
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It is much better to learn to deal with the ills we have now than to speculate on those that may befall us.
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The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune.
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There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
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It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do.
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Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design.
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Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.
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We are eager to believe that others are flawed because we are eager to believe in what we wish for.
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The passions often engender their contraries.
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Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.
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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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Wisdom is the mind what health is to the body.
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Raillery is more insupportable than wrong because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest.
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