Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillacla ʁɔʃfuˈko]; 15 September 1613 – 17 March 1680) was a noted French author of maxims and memoirs. It is said that his world-view was clear-eyed and urbane, and that he neither condemned human conduct nor sentimentally celebrated it. Born in Paris on the Rue des Petits Champs, at a time when the royal court was vacillating between aiding the nobility and threatening it, he was considered an exemplar of the accomplished 17th-century...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth15 September 1613
CountryFrance
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
We often act treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed motive.
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.
The daily employment of cunning marks a little mind, it generally happens that those who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves lay themselves open to attack in another.
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.
The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.
Too great cleverness is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is the most substantial cleverness.
One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.
It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.