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Those great and glorious actions that dazzle our eyes with their luster are represented by statesmen as the result of great wisdomand excellent design whereas, in truth, they are commonly the effects of the humors and passions.

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
Results
Whereas
Passion
Glorious
Humors
Eyes
Excellent
Luster
Politics
Actions
Dazzle
Eye
Result
Statesmen
Action
Glory
Commonly
Truth
Effects
Represented
Great
Design
Passions

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The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.
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We forgive just so long as we love.
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It is difficult to define love all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love-Plus many mysteries.
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Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
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We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
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The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.
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The extreme delight we experience in talking about ourselves should warn us that those who listen do not share it.
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Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
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The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.
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The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.
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The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
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Love is one and the same in the original but there are a thousand different copies of it.
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Lovers, when they are no longer in love, find it very hard to break up.
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The exceeding delight we take in talking about ourselves should give us cause to fear that we are giving but very little pleasureto our listeners.
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Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.
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Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.
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Prudence and love are inconsistent in proportion as the last increases, the other decreases.
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Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.
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If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.
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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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