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We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.
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
Wish
Desire
Nature
Things
Eagerness
Perfectly
Object
Objects
Knew
More quotes by 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.
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There are follies as catching as contagious disorders.
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True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
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The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.
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Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
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A man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing.
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Our temper sets a price upon every gift that we receive from fortune.
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The only security is courage.
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We speak little if not egged on by vanity.
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No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
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Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future.
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In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
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A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.
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Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity.
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Eloquence resides as much in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the expression of the face, as in the choice of words.
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Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.
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We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.
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In the human heart one generation of passions follows another from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.
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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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We should desire very few things passionately if we did but perfectly know the nature of the things we desire.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
