In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULDFew people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
More Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes
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Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.
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To know how to hide one’s ability is great skill.
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We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
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Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
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Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
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Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
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It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.
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As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.
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We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.
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There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
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We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
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Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.
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Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.
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Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
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In love we often doubt what we most believe.
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When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.
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It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
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Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.
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A man’s worth has its season, like fruit.
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Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
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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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If we judge love by most of its effects, it resembles rather hatred than affection.
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Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
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Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?
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We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
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There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.
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