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
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.
Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.
We like to read others but we do not like to be read.
It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding.
Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.
Idleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge; and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.
The thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy.
A man of understanding finds less difficulty in submitting to a wrong-headed fellow, than in attempting to set him right.
Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
You can find women who have never had an affair, but it is hard to find a woman who has had just one.
We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.
How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?
The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.