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Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.
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
Popularity
Virtuous
Merit
Esteem
Gains
Star
Public
Stars
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.
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To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
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We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it is a symmetry whose rules are unknown.
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We can be more clever than one, but not more clever than all.
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All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.
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If we had no faults, we would not derive so much pleasure from noting those of other people.
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Only the great can afford to have great defects.
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Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
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Reconciliation with our enemies is simply a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, or the fear of some unlucky thing from occurring.
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Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.
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More men are guilty of treason through weakness than any studied design to betray.
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In growing old, we become more foolish - and more wise.
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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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We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.
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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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One forgives to the degree that one loves.
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Old fools are greater fools than young ones.
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We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.
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We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
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Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
