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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
Most people judge men by their success or their good fortune.
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Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.
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Good taste comes more from the judgment than from the mind.
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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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We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
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Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
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Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.
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Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes.
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We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
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The greatest of all gifts is the power to estimate things at their true worth
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Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.
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The old begin to complain of the conduct of the young when they themselves are no longer able to set a bad example.
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What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think themselves cleverer than we are.
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We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
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A wise man should order his interests, and set them all in their proper places. This order is often troubled by greed, which putsus upon pursuing so many things at once that, in eagerness for matters of less consideration, we grasp at trifles, and let go things of greater value.
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One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The duration of our passions is no more dependent on ourselves than the duration of our lives.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
However we may conceal our passions under the veil ... there is always some place where they peep out.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Ability wins us the esteem of the true men luck, that of the people.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
