Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680) was a French author. Born into one of the most prestigious families of the French nobility, his education was augmented with military exercises, hunting, and court etiquette. At the age of seventeen he joined the army, and fought bravely in several campaigns over the years. He was widely recognized as a moralist and a man of letters. Out of his extensive writings, La Rochefoucauld only published two works, his most famous being Maximes.
Quotes by Francois de La Rochefoucauld…
Little minds are too much hurt by little events. Great minds understand all of them, and remain untouched.
We often inconvenience others, when we fancy we can never possibly do so.
Humility is often only a feigned submission, of which we make use to make others submissive. It is the trickery of pride which abases itself in order to exalt itself, and though it transforms itself in a thousand different ways, it is never better disguised and more capable of deceiving than when it conceals itself under the cloak of humility.
We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct.
Self-interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of roles, even that of disinterestedness.
We take less pains to be happy than to appear so.
The violence that others do to us is often less painful than violence we do to ourselves.
There are different kinds of curiosity; one springs from interest, which makes us desire to know everything that may be profitable to us; another from pride, which springs from a desire to know what others do not know.
The heights of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things.
We become so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that at last we are disguised to ourselves.
