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
When the heart is still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take up a new one than when wholly cured.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest.
Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.
Death and the sun are not to be looked at steadily.
Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.
Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.
To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.
It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.
Men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly but at a distance.
Sometimes in life situations develop that only the half-crazy can get out of.