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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.
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
Men
Deception
Highly
Inconsolable
Enemies
Deceptions
Satisfied
Treachery
Enemy
Concerning
Friends
Selves
Often
Betrayed
Self
Deceived
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.
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However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
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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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There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
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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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Women know not the whole of their coquetry.
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The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.
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Our minds are as much given to laziness as our bodies.
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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 do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue.
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Sobriety is love of health, or inability to eat much.
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Too great cleverness is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is the most substantial cleverness.
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Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.
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Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.
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Weak people cannot be sincere.
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Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.
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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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We are eager to believe that others are flawed because we are eager to believe in what we wish for.
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One man may be more cunning than another, but no one can be more cunning than all the world.
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No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.
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