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
A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon.
Our actions are like blank rhymes, to which everyone applies what sense he pleases.
It requires no small degree of ability to know when to conceal one's ability.
Silence is the best tactic for he who distrusts himself.
We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct.
What is perfectly true is perfectly witty.
More men are guilty of treason through weakness than any studied design to betray.
That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.
The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.
Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secrecy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last forever.
Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire.
We frequently do good in order to enable us to do evil later with impunity exemption of punishment.
The man who leaves a woman best pleased with herself is the one whom she will soonest wish to see.
The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.