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François de La Rochefoucauld

Quote of François de La Rochefoucauld - The contempt of riches in philosophers...


Biography - François de La Rochefoucauld:

French moralist, author of maxims and memoirs.
Born: 1613 - Died: 1680
Period:
17th century
Place of birth: France
France

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.


Note 

Note



Maxim 54


Source: Reflections, or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Wikisource - La Rochefoucauld - Œuvres (fr) 




Translation

Translation

(French, German)



French
Le mépris des richesses était dans les philosophes un désir caché de venger leur mérite de l’injustice de la fortune par le mépris des mêmes biens dont elle les privait ; c’était un secret pour se garantir de l’avilissement de la pauvreté ; c’était un chemin détourné pour aller à la considération qu’ils ne pouvaient avoir par les richesses.

German
Die Verachtung des Reichtums war bei den Philosophen ein geheimer Wunsch, ihren Wert an der Ungerechtigkeit des Schicksals durch Missachtung eben der Güter zu rächen, deren es sie beraubte — ein Geheimmittel, um sich vor der Erniedrigung durch die Armut zu schützen — ein Umweg zum Erwerb eben des Ansehens, das sie durch Reichtümer nicht erlangen konnten.




See also 

See also...



Even for the wise, the desire for glory is the last of all passions to be laid aside.




Quotes for: way


Quotes

Quotes for: way


If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there.





Be confident: Truth is not the end of the way, it is the way itself.





One never goes so far as when one no longer knows where one is going.





Each man must invent his own path.





The way up and down is one and the same.





Courage in the path is what makes the path manifest itself.











Quotes for: philosopher


Quotes

Quotes for: philosopher


Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.





Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.





Clarity is the good faith of philosophers.





I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'





The beard does not make the philosopher.
 / 





The philosopher should never forget that he is cultivating an art and not a science.











Quotes for: wealth


Quotes

Quotes for: wealth


I am rich in the goods that I can do without.





Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences.





The wise man is rich





Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.





To love is to find one's riches outside oneself.





If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.











Quotes for: poverty


Quotes

Quotes about poverty:


Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.





Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.





As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.





Abundance makes me poor.





A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: One to fear and sorrow, real poverty.





Another cause of our poverty lies in our new needs.











Quotes

Quotes for: Contempt


There are more things to admire in men than to despise.





No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.





The contempt of our nature is an error of our reason.





No man is despised by another unless he is first despised by himself.





The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.





Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.







Quotes

François de La Rochefoucauld also said...


It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.





There is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor feign it where it does not.





If we had no pride we should not complain of that of others.





Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.





Few people know how to be old.





We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.












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