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Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally incapable of great ones.

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
Giving
Incapable
Great
Generally
Much
Greatness
Things
Fame
Ones
Attention
Become
Give
Trifling

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When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
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However we may conceal our passions under the veil ... there is always some place where they peep out.
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Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
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Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.
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It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
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Were we perfectly acquainted with the object, we should never passionately desire it.
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Old people love to give good advice it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.
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In friendship, as in love, we are often more happy from the things we are ignorant of than from those we are acquainted with.
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Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
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Imagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person's heart.
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Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour.
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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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Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy.
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Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
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Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.
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We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.
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Nothing is so contagious as example.
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The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.
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