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
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
Though most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of friendships; yet a man may make use of them on occasion, as of a traffic whose returns are uncertain, and in which 'tis usual to be cheated.
The better part of one's life consists of his friendships. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Joseph Gillespie, July 13, 1849 Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.
Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.
A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
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 thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy.
The reason why most women have so little sense of friendship is that this is but a cold and flat passion to those that have felt that of love.
The reason we do not let our friends see the very bottom of our hearts is not so much distrust of them as distrust of ourselves.