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
Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.
The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy.
People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her.
Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.
When the heart is still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take up a new one than when wholly cured.
Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.
Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
However we may conceal our passions under the veil ... there is always some place where they peep out.
The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.
L'absence diminue les mediocres passions, et augmente les grandes,comme le vent eteint les bougies, et allume le feu. Absence diminishes commonplace passions, and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.
All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat and cold of the blood.
The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.