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There are persons whose only merit consists in saying and doing stupid things at the right time, and who ruin all if they change their manners.

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
Stupid
Saying
Change
Ruin
Persons
Consists
Right
Ruins
Things
Merit
Time
Manners
Whose

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Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves.
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Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.
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Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.
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No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.
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The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.
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There are certain people fated to be fools they not only commit follies by choice, but are even constrained to do so by fortune.
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The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.
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It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.
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Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.
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We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.
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We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring.
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Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.
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It is with sincere affection or friendship as with ghosts and apparitions,--a thing that everybody talks of, and scarce any hath seen.
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When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
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Hope and fear are inseparable. There is no hope without fear, nor any fear without hope.
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Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.
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Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
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If we did not have pride, we would not complain of it in others.
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The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
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The confidence which we have in ourselves give birth to much of that, which we have in others.
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