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Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
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
Principles
Moving
Tenths
Action
Selfishness
Grand
Motive
Principle
Nine
Actions
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
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Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.
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We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy.
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Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
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We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.
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Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
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Few things are needed to make a wise man happy nothing can make a fool content that is why most men are miserable.
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All who know their own minds know not their own hearts.
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What often prevents our abandoning ourselves to a single vice is, our having more than one.
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Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.
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Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.
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We rarely ever perceive others as being sensible, except for those who agree with us.
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Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.
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Great names abase, instead of elevating, those who do not know how to bear them.
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In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.
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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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True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.
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However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.
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A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.
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In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities.
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