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
Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise.
The world is full of pots jeering at kettles.
It is impossible to love a second time what we have really ceased to love.
Great names abase, instead of elevating, those who do not know how to bear them.
Smallness of mind is the cause of stubbornness, and we do not credit readily what is beyond our view.
In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.
In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.
The duration of our passions is no more dependent on ourselves than the duration of our lives.
Solemnity is a device of the body to hide the faults of the mind.
We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, but envy is a timid and shamefaced passion we never dare to acknowledge.
There are reproaches which praise, and praises which defame.
Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour.
There is merit without rank, but there is no rank without some merit.
It is difficult to like those whom we do not esteem; but it is no less so to like those whom we esteem more than ourselves.