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Men never desire anything very eagerly which they desire only by the dictates of reason.
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
Never
Men
Eagerly
Dictates
Passion
Desire
Anything
Reason
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.
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To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.
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The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.
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We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.
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The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune.
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To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.
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We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.
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Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.
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Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
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Even the most disinterested love is, after all, but a kind of bargain, in which self-love always proposes to be the gainer one wayor another.
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What is called liberality is often merely the vanity of giving.
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Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.
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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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We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy.
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Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.
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Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new.
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The temperament that produces a talent for little things is the opposite of that required for great ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.
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What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
