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 have not strength enough to follow our reason so far as it would carry us.
We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.
Fearlessness is a more than ordinary strength of mind, which raises the soul above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which theprospect of great dangers are used to produce. And by this inward strength it is that heroes preserve themselves in a calm and quiet state, and enjoy a presence of mind and the free use of their reason in the midst of those terrible accidents that amaze and confound other people.
The courage of a great many men, and the virtue of a great many women, are the effect of vanity, shame, and especially a suitabletemperament.
We are much mistaken if we think that men are always brave from a principle of valor, or women chaste from a principle of modesty.
The most ingenious men continually pretend to condemn tricking--but this is often done that they may use it more conveniently themselves, when some great occasion or interest offers itself to them.
The most effectual way to be deceived is to believe oneself more cunning than one's neighbors.
Men are inconsolable concerning the treachery of their friends or the deceptions of their enemies; and yet they are often very highly satisfied to be both deceived and betrayed by their own selves.
The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him; and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others.
The breeding we give young people is ordinarily but an additional self-love, by which we make them have a better opinion of themselves.
We easily forget our faults when no one knows them but ourselves.
Bravery in simple soldiers is a dangerous trade, to which they have bound themselves to get their livelihood.
Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a morecalculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.
What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.