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 resolution never to deceive exposes a man to be often deceived.
We often shed tears that deceive ourselves after deceiving others.
You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.
The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.
The intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception.
We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves.
The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are.
It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.
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.
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.
In love deceit almost always outstrips distrust.
A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.