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Ability
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To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Absence
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Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Action(s)
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Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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However brilliant an action, it should not be esteemed great unless the result of a great motive.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665
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Admiration
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We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Advice
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Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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We may give advice, but not the sense to use it.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Age
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As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Few people know how to be old.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Old people love to give good advice to console themselves for no longer being able to set a bad example.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Agreement
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The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Anger
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The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Appearance
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Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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To establish yourself in the world a person must do all they can to appear already established.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Argument & Debate
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Quarrels would not last so long if the fault lay only on one side.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Beauty
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Some beautiful things are more impressive when left imperfect than when too highly finished.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims 1665, Maxim 627
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Bravery
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Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.
-Francois de la Rochefoucauld
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Books by and about Francois de la Rochefoucauld