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The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Age: 66 †
Born: 1613
Born: September 15
Died: 1680
Died: March 17
Memoirist
Military Personnel
Writer
Paris
France
François VI
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Prince de Marcillac
François
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Desire
Gain
Arrive
Back
Philosopher
Guard
Way
Injustice
Contempt
Gains
Riches
Despising
Fortune
Distinction
Avenge
Poverty
Merit
Degradation
Secret
Hidden
Deprived
Upon
Goods
Philosophers

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Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.
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To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.
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The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.
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The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease.
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Weakness is the only fault that is incorrigible.
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One may outwit another, but not all the others.
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Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
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Only the great can afford to have great defects.
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A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.
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Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.
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What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.
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The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.
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A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.
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Esteem never makes ingrates.
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If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.
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The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.
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We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.
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When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.
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Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.
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Moral severity in women is only a dress or paint which they use to set off their beauty.
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