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We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.

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
Imagine
Contriving
Use
Imagining
Often
Reconcile
Nothing
Idleness
Much
Excuse
Things
Lack
Strength
Impossible

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A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.
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Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
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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 evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.
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Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.
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Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
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What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.
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All the passions make us commit faults love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
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Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
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There are some bad qualities which make great talents.
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Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
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When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.
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The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies.
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To be a great man it is necessary to turn to account all opportunities.
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A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.
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Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations others mistake great future advantages for small present interests.
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The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.
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