Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Added by Lucian Velea
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What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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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.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances.
quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Added by Lucian Velea
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