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
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.
What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.
The smallest fault of women who give themselves up to love is to love.
There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us.
Generosity is the vanity of giving.
Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.
The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.
Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.
We give advice, we do not inspire conduct.
Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.
Old people are fond of giving good advice; it consoles them for no longer being capable of setting a bad example.
What is called liberality is often merely the vanity of giving.
We may give advice, but not the sense to use it.