Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.
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We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
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Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.
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No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.
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The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.
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Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well
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We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
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The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.
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Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
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The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.
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A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
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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.
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The first who was king was a fortunate soldier Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
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Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres. (In this country England it is thought well to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others. from Candide)
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A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
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The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than actual brilliancy.
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We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.
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If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
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Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
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Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.
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Men are more satirical from vanity than from malice.
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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.
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Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
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To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
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Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
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What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
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People have declaimed against luxury for 2000 years, in verse and in prose, and people have always delighted in it.
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Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
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Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.
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We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
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