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
Envy is destroyed by true friendship, as coquetry by true love.
Nothing is so contagious as example.
Our distrust justifies the deceit of others.
It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.
We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.
Perfect courage and utter cowardice are two extremes which rarely occur.
Love of fame, fear of disgrace, schemes for advancement, desire to make life comfortable and pleasant, and the urge to humiliate others are often at the root of the valour men hold in such high esteem.
One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.
We cannot possibly imagine the variety of contradictions in every heart.
The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.
Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.
A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there.