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
Jealousy is nothing more than a fear of abandonment
It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.
Preserving the serious health condition is usually painful.
We own up to minor failings, but only so as to convince others that we have no major ones.
There are few people who would not be ashamed of being loved when they love no longer.
If it were not for poetry, few men would ever fall in love.
Only strong natures can really be sweet ones; those that seem sweet are in general only weak, and may easily turn sour.
Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.
To know oneself is not necessarily to improve oneself
We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives.
When our hatred is too alive puts us below what we hate.
One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.
We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.
It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.