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It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.

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
Often
Determine
Hard
Honesty
Goodness
Result
Results
Open
Proceeding
Clear
Cunning
Whether
Honorable

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Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.
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Too great cleverness is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is the most substantial cleverness.
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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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All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.
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Some men are like ballads, that are in everyone's mouth a little while.
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There are some persons who only disgust with their abilities, there are persons who please even with their faults.
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We can be more clever than one, but not more clever than all.
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It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.
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We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.
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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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In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.
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Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.
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We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.
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Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.
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For the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes.
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One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.
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Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.
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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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In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities.
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How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?
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