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One's ridiculousness increases in proportion as one denies it.

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)

Le ridicule qu’on a augmente toujours en proportion qu’on s’en défend.

Original text (French)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Letter 141: La Marquise de Merteuil to le Vicomte de Valmont. Trans. Richard Aldington (1924).

More quotes by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Success, which is not always a proof of merit, depends more often on the choice of a subject than on its execution.

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One hand was needed for power, the other for love: where is the orator that could aspire to grace in such a position?

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The scoundrel has his good qualities, and the good man his weaknesses.

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Love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature.

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An opportunity missed once will present itself again, whereas a too hasty action can never be recalled.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.