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
Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.
Sobriety is love of health, or inability to eat much.
The tranquility or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the big things which happen to us in life, as on the pleasant or unpleasant arrangements of the little things which happen daily.
Tastes in young people are changed by natural impetuosity, and in the aged are preserved by habit.
Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.
There are some bad qualities which make great talents.
We feel good and ill only in proportion to our self-love.
The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.
However much we may distrust men's sincerity, we always believe they speak to us more sincerely than to others.
Affected simplicity is an elegant imposture.
The only security is courage.
It is difficult to like those whom we do not esteem; but it is no less so to like those whom we esteem more than ourselves.
There is merit without rank, but there is no rank without some merit.
Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour.