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
As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
Women can less easily surmount their coquetry than their passions.
A good woman is a hidden treasure; who discovers her will do well not to boast about it.
A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.
A man does not please long when he has only species of wit.
Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.
Our wisdom is no less at fortune's mercy than our wealth.
The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.
We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.
The vivacity that augments with years is not far from folly.
The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.
It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.
The less you trust others, the less you will be deceived.
Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.