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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Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
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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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The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.
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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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We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
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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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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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People have declaimed against luxury for 2000 years, in verse and in prose, and people have always delighted in it.
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Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
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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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If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
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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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Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
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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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Men are more satirical from vanity than from malice.
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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 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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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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Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.
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Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
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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 God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him. But all nature cries aloud that He does exist that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.
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To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
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The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.
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To hold a pen is to be at war.
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