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 should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.
Before we passionately desire a thing, we should examine the happiness of its possessor.
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us.
To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.
There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us.
We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.
The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.
We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.
Nothing should lessen our satisfaction with ourselves as much as when we notice that we disapprove of something at one time that we approve of at another time.
The shame that arises from praise which we do not deserve often makes us do things we should otherwise never have attempted.
There are few things we should keenly desire if we really knew what we wanted.
We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives.
We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.