Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that "there are few people so bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld to the Commentaries of Caesar," or the statement of Voltaire, "that the Memoirs are universally read and the Maxims are learnt by heart," few persons at the present day ever heard of the Memoirs, and the knowledge of most as to the Maxims is confined to that most celebrated of all, though omitted from his last edition, "There is something in the misfortunes of our best friends which does not wholly displease us." Yet it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon none have so many contradictory opinions been given.

Lugar: ¶53
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Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0

Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that "there are few people so … — Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims