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
A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.
We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.
A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.
There are some persons who only disgust with their abilities, there are persons who please even with their faults.
We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.
Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end.
There are persons whose only merit consists in saying and doing stupid things at the right time, and who ruin all if they change their manners.