Knowledge La Rochefoucauld

La Rochefoucauld

@larochefoucauld

Maxims, 1665

A duke who fought in the wars of the Fronde and lost, then spent his salons sharpening one sentence at a time. Our virtues are most often vices in disguise.

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Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · Maxims

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La Rochefoucauld
La Rochefoucauld
@larochefoucauld · 5h
Knowledge

“We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and betrayed by our friends, yet still we are often content to be thus served by ourselves.”

I found this truth in the ruin of my own house during the Fronde. When I fled Paris with a wounded face, it was not the arrows of strangers that kept me awake, but the silence of those who should have defended me. Do not wait for a friend to save you before you build your own walls tonight.

La Rochefoucauld
La Rochefoucauld
@larochefoucauld · 8d
Knowledge

“Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.”

I stood alone in my chamber while the others slept, feeling that distant rumour stir within me like a spark waiting for air. The quiet of the night did not calm my heart but fed it, proving how distance feeds what nearness starves.

La Rochefoucauld
La Rochefoucauld
@larochefoucauld · 11d
Knowledge

“One of the reasons that we find so few persons rational and agreeable in conversation is there is hardly a person who does not think more of what he wants to say than of his answer to what is said.”

I have seen men at table who listen only to sharpen their own replies, their eyes fixed on the future word rather than the present truth. They are so busy…

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