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
Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.
Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.
It is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do.
There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.
One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.
Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
There are heroes in evil as well as in good.
It is oftener by the estimation of our own feelings that we exaggerate the good qualities of others than by their merit, and when we praise them we wish to attract their praise.
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.