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
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.
Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it.
Only the contemptible fear contempt.
The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.
It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures.
It takes nearly as much ability to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self.
Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.