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To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

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
Done
Deceived
Believe
Touching
Athenian
Men
Believing
Athenians
Ships
Madman
Merit
Belonged
Turn
Madmen
Turns
Awaken
Happy
Port

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We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
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To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.
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Humility is the worst form of conceit.
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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.]
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In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful.
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It is a wearisome disease to preserve health by too strict a regimen.
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The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
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It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved.
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The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.
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One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.
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For the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes.
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The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease.
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The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.
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We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.
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Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.
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Friendship is a traffic wherein self-love always proposes to be the gainer.
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It is difficult to define love all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love-Plus many mysteries.
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Some weak people are so sensible of their weakness as to be able to make a good use of it.
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As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
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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.
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