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The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
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
Appearing
Clever
Becoming
Desire
Often
Pretension
Cleverness
Prevents
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A man of understanding finds less difficulty in submitting to a wrong-headed fellow, than in attempting to set him right.
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We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.
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The whimsicalness of our own humor is a thousand times more fickle and unaccountable than what we blame so much in fortune.
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Fancy sets the value on the gifts of fortune.
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That conduct often seems ridiculous the secret reasons of which are wise and solid.
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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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
One may outwit another, but not all the others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which fixes our hearts successively to all the qualities of the person loved--sometimes admiring one and sometimes another above all the rest--so that this constancy roves as far as it can, and is no better than inconstancy, confined within the compass of one person.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who refuses praise the first time that it is offered does so because he would hear it a second time.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Fortune never seems so blind to any as to those on whom she bestows no favors.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done. [Fr., On croit quelquefoir hair la flatterie maid on ne hait que a maniere de flatter.]
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
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
Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
