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
Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.
The old begin to complain of the conduct of the young when they themselves are no longer able to set a bad example.
Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end.
We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.
I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy.
We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.
There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.
Death and the sun are not to be looked at steadily.
Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.