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
A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.
Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.
There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
Innocence is lucky if it finds the same protection as guilt
Honest people will respect us for our merit: the public, for our luck.
Nature creates ability; luck provides it with opportunity.
Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.
We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.
How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?
The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.
A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.
Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.