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 would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.
To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.
Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.
When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
Some reproaches praise; some praises reproach.
If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.
All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense.
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.
Hope, deceitful as it is, carries us through life agreeably enough.
We take less pains to be happy, than to appear so.
Misers mistake gold for their good; whereas 'tis only a means of attaining it.
Though most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of friendships; yet a man may make use of them on occasion, as of a traffic whose returns are uncertain, and in which 'tis usual to be cheated.
The better part of one's life consists of his friendships. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Joseph Gillespie, July 13, 1849 Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.