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Currently re-reading Francois de La Rochefoucauld's maxims which I first read when still in school. Thought I'd post my highlits since they're conveniently stored on my ebook anyway, just waiting to be shared. Here we go:
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Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
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If we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather resembles hatred than friendship.
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There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it, few persons have seen it.
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What men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours--in fact it is but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something.
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It is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our friends.
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Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
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Nothing is less sincere than the way of asking and giving advice. The person asking seems to pay deference to the opinion of his friend, while thinking in reality of making his friend approve his opinion and be responsible for his conduct. The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him by eager and disinterested zeal, in doing which he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.
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There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.
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As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
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The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.
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Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.
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There are two kinds of constancy in love, one arising from incessantly finding in the loved one fresh objects to love, the other from regarding it as a point of honour to be constant.
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Our repentance is not so much sorrow for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us.
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Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.
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Pride will not owe, self-love will not pay.
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No one should be praised for his goodness if he has not strength enough to be wicked.
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There is no passion wherein self-love reigns so powerfully as in love, and one is always more ready to sacrifice the peace of the loved one than his own.
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A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.
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It is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really ceased to love.
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We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
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Moderation is made a virtue to limit the ambition of the great; to console ordinary people for their small fortune and equally small ability.
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We are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire.
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Why we hate with so much bitterness those who deceive us is because they think themselves more clever than we are.
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Irina |
20-09-2013
Mutually beneficial is as good as it gets on this horrific planet. :))) |
It's disturbing to realize that you are incapable of putting anyone before yourself in any decision you make. It's also frightening to realize that the same applies to everyone who you must work with or depend on.
Luckily, most of us have some deep urge to help others (we are really helping ourselves, but it is mutually beneficial). I guess we could have evolved to be worse, so hooray?