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
To praise great actions is in some sense to share them.
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.
We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.
Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is treacherous.
Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.
A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
Some reproaches praise; some praises reproach.
There are reproaches which praise, and praises which defame.
To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is to insult them without fear of consequences.
The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us.