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.
A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.
There are persons whose only merit consists in saying and doing stupid things at the right time, and who ruin all if they change their manners.
There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.
The man who leaves a woman best pleased with herself is the one whom she will soonest wish to see.
Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.
The man whom no one pleases is much more unhappy than the man who pleases no one.
The esteem of good men is the reward of our worth, but the reputation of the world in general is the gift of our fate.
Silence is the best security to the man who distrusts himself.
Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.
Passion very often makes the wisest men fools, and very often too inspires the greatest fools with wit.
A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man.
Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.
On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.