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
Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility.
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
We frequently do good in order to enable us to do evil later with impunity exemption of punishment.
The violence we do to ourselves in order to remain faithful to the one we love is hardly better than an act of infidelity.
Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise.
We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there.
In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful.
Organize one's values in the order of their worth
Sometimes, occasions occur in life which demand you to be a little foolish in order to skillfully extricate yourself.
We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
We exaggerate the glory of some men in order to detract from that of others.