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
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.
A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
We always get bored with those whom we bore.
Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.
People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.
We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.
Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.
We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.