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

Letter 141: La Marquise de Merteuil to le Vicomte de Valmont. Trans. Richard Aldington (1924). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_141
Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)

Original

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

Les Liaisons dangereuses, 1782, Marquise de Merteuil

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 16
French novelist, official and army general 1741–1803

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