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If we took as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to deceive others by disguising what we are we might appear as we are, without being at the trouble of any disguise.

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
Ought
Trouble
Disguising
Pain
Deceive
Others
Pains
Might
Deceiving
Without
Disguise
Much
Appear
Took

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There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
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Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.
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Sincerity is an openness of heart we find it in very few people what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.
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We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.
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The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.
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To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.
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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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Sometimes there is equal or more ability in knowing how to use good advice than there is in giving it.
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Fortune never appears so blind as to those to whom she does no good.
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In growing old, we become more foolish - and more wise.
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When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
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Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
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Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.
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Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.
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Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.
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The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.
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One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
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We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.
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It is worth nothing to be young without being beautiful, nor to be beautiful without being young.
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