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The generality of friends puts us out of conceit with friendship just as the generality of religious people puts us out of conceit with religion.

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
Religious
Friends
Religion
People
Generality
Generalities
Conceit
Puts
Friendship

More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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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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Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
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When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.
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Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires.
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Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.
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Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves.
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The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.
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Self-love makes our friends appear more or less deserving in proportion to the delight we take in them, and the measures by whichwe judge of their worth depend upon the manner of their conversing with us.
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The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.
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We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.
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The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.
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The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
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To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.
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Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us.
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We like to read others but we do not like to be read.
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We should desire very few things passionately if we did but perfectly know the nature of the things we desire.
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It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
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The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acpuire it.
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A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
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