Quote

There is a form of eminence which does not depend on fate it is an air which sets us apart and seems to prtend great things it is the value which we unconsciously attach to ourselves it is the quality which wins us deference of others more than birth, position, or ability, it gives us ascendance.

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
Things
Values
Birth
Attach
Life
Success
Depends
Unconsciously
Others
Value
Wins
Form
Gives
Sets
Seems
Position
Depend
Doe
Quality
Apart
Giving
Winning
Fate
Deference
Great
Ability
Air
Eminence

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However we may conceal our passions under the veil ... there is always some place where they peep out.
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Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.
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Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
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We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.
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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 accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.
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Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.
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One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.
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Nothing should lessen our satisfaction with ourselves as much as when we notice that we disapprove of something at one time that we approve of at another time.
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Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
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If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.
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It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.
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We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.
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We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.
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Confidence in conversation has a greater share than wit.
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What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.
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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 often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
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For envy, like lightning, generally strikes at the top Or any point which sticks out from the ordinary level. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura Our envy always outlives the felicity of its object.
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We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.
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