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
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.
We take less pains to be happy, than to appear so.
Happy people rarely correct their faults; they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways.
One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks.
The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.
We torment ourselves rather to make it appear that we are happy than to become so.
We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be.
Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things.
If we did not have pride, we would not complain of it in others.
The truest mark of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.
If we had no faults, we would not derive so much pleasure from noting those of other people.
We would rather see those to whom we do good, than those who do good to us.
Some beautiful things are more dazzling when they are still imperfect than when they have been too perfectly crafted.