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
In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they are in love with love.
It is harder to hide the feelings we have than to feign the ones we do not have.
Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.
Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.
Humility is the worst form of conceit.
It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.
One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.
To know oneself is not necessarily to improve oneself
It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.
To establish ourselves in the world, we have to do all we can to appear established. To succeed in the world, we do everything we can to appear successful.
People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune.
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.
The heart is forever making the head its fool.