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
When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.
The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.
We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.
The reason we bitterly hate those who deceive us is because they think they are cleverer than we are.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.
The heart is forever making the head its fool.
The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her.
The more we love, the nearer we are to hate.
When our hatred is too alive puts us below what we hate.
If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness.
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done. [Fr., On croit quelquefoir hair la flatterie; maid on ne hait que a maniere de flatter.]
Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.
Men sometimes think they hate flattery, but they hate only the manner of flattering.