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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.

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
Esteem
Praise
Present
Show
Shows
Past
Praising
Sometimes
Condemn
Contempt

More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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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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A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.
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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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The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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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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A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon.
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What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.
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The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.
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Gratitude is like credit it is the backbone of our relations frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans.
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No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks. [Fr., Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.]
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Youth is a perpetual intoxication it is a fever of the mind.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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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
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A man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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It is not always from valor or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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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