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Affected simplicity is a subtle imposture.

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
Imposture
Affected
Subtle
Simplicity

More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.
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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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Wisdom is the mind what health is to the body.
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We rarely ever perceive others as being sensible, except for those who agree with us.
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One should treat one's fate as one does one's health enjoy it when it is good, be patient with it when it is poor, and never attempt any drastic cure save as an ultimate resort.
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The esteem of good men is the reward of our worth, but the reputation of the world in general is the gift of our fate.
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To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.
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If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.
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Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.
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To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.
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Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.
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Love has its name borrowed by a great number of dealings and affairs that are attributed to it--in which it has no greater part than the Doge in what is done at Venice.
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A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
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That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.
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Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.
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There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love.
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Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune.
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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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