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
Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.
A resolution never to deceive exposes a man to be often deceived.
We exaggerate the glory of some men in order to detract from that of others.
A man of understanding finds less difficulty in submitting to a wrong-headed fellow, than in attempting to set him right.
The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.
The most effectual way to be deceived is to believe oneself more cunning than one's neighbors.
A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived.
Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
We sometimes condemn the present, by praising the past; and show our contempt of what is now, by our esteem for what is no more.
The same strength of character which helps a man resist love, helps to make it more violent and lasting too. People of unsettled minds are always driven about with passions, but never absolutely filled with any.
One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.
Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.
If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.
Sometimes accidents happen in life from which we have need of a little madness to extricate ourselves successfully