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The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have. [Fr., On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.]
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
Character
Make
Ridicule
Affect
Qualities
Ridiculous
Quality
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Some disguised deceits counterfeit truth so perfectly that not to be taken in by them would be an error of judgment.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Were we faultless, we would not derive such satisfaction from remarking the faults of others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In the human heart new passions are forever being born the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The grace of novelty and the length of habit, though so very opposite to one another, yet agree in this, that they both alike keepus from discovering the faults of our friends.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
When the soul is ruffled by the remains of one passion, it is more disposed to entertain a new one than when it is entirely curedand at rest from all.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We are eager to believe that others are flawed because we are eager to believe in what we wish for.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld