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Humility is the sure evidence of Christian virtues. Without it, we retain all our faults still, and they are only covered over with pride, which hides them from other men's observation, and sometimes from our own too.

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
Pride
Hides
Virtue
Retain
Sure
Virtues
Christian
Covered
Stills
Observation
Still
Faults
Without
Humility
Sometimes
Evidence

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Fortune cures us of many faults that reason could not.
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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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A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.
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What is called liberality is often merely the vanity of giving.
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It is only persons of firmness that can have real gentleness. Those who appear gentle are, in general, only a weak character, which easily changes into asperity.
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Virtues lose themselves in self-interest, as rivers in the sea.
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Few things are impracticable in themselves and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
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Nothing is rarer than true good nature they who are reputed to have it are generally only pliant or weak.
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We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
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Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.
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We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face--so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.
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There is scarcely any man sufficiently clever to appreciate all the evil he does.
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Few know how to be old.
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Not all who discharge their debts of gratitude should flatter themselves that they are grateful.
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To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
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Great names abase, instead of elevating, those who do not know how to bear them.
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We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes.
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Some reproaches praise some praises reproach.
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Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility.
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