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
The generality of men have, like plants, latent properties, which chance brings to light.
Only strong natures can really be sweet ones; those that seem sweet are in general only weak, and may easily turn sour.
Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
If a man doesn't find ease in himself, 'tis in vain to seek it elsewhere.
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes.
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.
Many young persons believe themselves natural when they are only impolite and coarse.
We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.
We bear, all of us, the misfortunes of other people with heroic constancy.
Fortune makes our virtues and vices visible, just as light does the objects of sight.
A man may be sharper than another, but not than all others.