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It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.

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
Masters
Idleness
Action
Design
Influences
Love
Influence
Virtues
Rest
Passions
Insensibly
Virtue
Triumph
Languid
Mistake
Violent
Consumes
Imagine
Actions
Designs
Passion
Ambition
Destroys

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A man may be sharper than another, but not than all others.
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Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
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There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
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We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring.
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He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks. [Fr., Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.]
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One of the greatest and also the commonest of faults is for men to believe that, because they never hear their shortcomings spoken of, or read about them in cold print, others can have no knowledge of them. GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG, The Reflections of Lichtenberg We are often more agreeable through our faults than our good qualities.
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It is worth nothing to be young without being beautiful, nor to be beautiful without being young.
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We do not despise all those who have vices, but we do despise those that have no virtue.
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What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.
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The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies.
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We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
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Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
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A man often believes himself leader when he is led as his mind endeavors to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.
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Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.
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We have more indolence in the mind than in the body.
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Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.
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One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.
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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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Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken.
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Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future.
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