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
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
Gratitude is like the good faith of traders: it maintains commerce, and we often pay, not because it is just to discharge our debts, but that we may more readily find people to trust us.
Gratitude is like credit; it is the backbone of our relations; frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans.
Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation. [However disappointment can always be removed if we remember it could have turned out worse.]
No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them...
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.
When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.
Gratitude is a useless word. You will find it in a dictionary but not in life.
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come.
A man seldom finds people unthankful, as long as he remains in a condition of benefiting them further.
That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver's pride and the receiver's cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done.