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 judge so superficially of things, that common words and actions spoke and done in an agreeable manner, with some knowledge of what passes in the world, often succeed beyond the greatest ability.
Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.
We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
The violence done us by others is often less painful than that which we do to ourselves.
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.
Our repentances are generally not so much a concern and remorse for the harm we have done, as a fear of the harm we may have brought upon ourselves.
Truth has scarce done so much good in the world as the false appearances of it have done hurt.
The contempt of riches in the philosophers was a concealed desire of revenging on fortune the injustice done to their merit, by despising the good she denied them.
Nothing is so contagious as example; never was there any considerable good or ill done that does not produce its like. We imitate good actions through emulation, and had ones through a malignity in our nature, which shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.
We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.
How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?
The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.