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Self-love is the love of a man's own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.

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
Besides
Love
Selfishness
World
Tyranny
People
Sake
Makes
Else
Everything
Idolaters
Self
Tyrants

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As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
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The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others.
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There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.
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It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.
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Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
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The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.
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Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.
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Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
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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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There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.
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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.
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The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.
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Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
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We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
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