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
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
It is easy to be wise on behalf of others than to be so for ourselves.
He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.
We always like those who admire us.
Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.
We often pay our debts not because it is only fair that we should, but to make future loans easier.
It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.
A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.