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
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
Everyone takes pleasure in returning small obligations, many people acknowledge moderate ones; but there are only a scarce few who do not pay great ones with ingratitude.
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.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.
In the presence of some people we inevitably depart From ourselves: we are inaccurate, we say things we do not feel, And talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we Have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people.
Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
We bear, all of us, the misfortunes of other people with heroic constancy.
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.