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There are two things which Man cannot look at directly without flinching: the sun and death.
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
Without
Looks
Flinching
Things
Directly
Men
Sun
Death
Two
Cannot
Look
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
All women seem by nature to be coquettes.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Good taste comes more from the judgment than from the mind.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have. [Fr., On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.]
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We have not strength enough to follow our reason so far as it would carry us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Fortune mends more faults in us than ever reason would be able to do.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Fortune never appears so blind as to those to whom she does no good.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
All the passions make us commit faults love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The duration of our passions is no more dependent on ourselves than the duration of our lives.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
History never embraces more than a small part of reality
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
It is a species of coquetry to make a parade of never practising it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
