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The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.
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
Appearance
Object
Ambition
Objects
Meets
Least
Impossibility
Largest
Absolutes
Absolute
More quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.
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To establish ourselves in the world, we have to do all we can to appear established. To succeed in the world, we do everything we can to appear successful.
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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.
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Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.
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The mind is always the patsy of the heart.
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We always get bored with those whom we bore.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
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It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
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Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
That man, we may be sure, is a person of true worth, whom those who envy him most are yet forced to praise.
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Old people are fond of giving good advice it consoles them for no longer being capable of setting a bad example.
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He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.
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Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.
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The confidence which we have in ourselves give birth to much of that, which we have in others.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.
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Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
