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
Humility is the worst form of conceit.
There are few people more convinced of their own genius than those who complain of how stupid they are.
We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.
There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.
Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come.
We are eager to believe that others are flawed because we are eager to believe in what we wish for.
Tricks and treachery are merely proofs of lack of skill.
Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.
One should treat one's fate as one does one's health; enjoy it when it is good, be patient with it when it is poor, and never attempt any drastic cure save as an ultimate resort.
Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.
Love, like fire, cannot subsist without constant impulse; it ceases to live from the moment it ceases to hope or to fear.
Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.
It is harder to hide the feelings we have than to feign the ones we do not have.
In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they are in love with love.