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
Francois de La Rochefoucauld quotes about
Small minds are much distressed by little things. Great minds see them all but are not upset by them.
Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.
A woman is faithful to her first lover for a long time - unless she happens to take a second.
On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.
When love becomes labored we welcome an act of infidelity towards ourselves to free us from fidelity.
Our actions are like the terminations of verses, which we rhyme as we please.
You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.
We often shed tears that deceive ourselves after deceiving others.
In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities.
Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character....
The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.
We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.
What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.
If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter.