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La Rochefoucauld

American  
[la rawsh-foo-koh] / la rɔʃ fuˈkoʊ /

noun

  1. François 6th Duc de, 1613–80, French moralist and composer of epigrams and maxims.


La Rochefoucauld British  
/ la rɔʃfuko /

noun

  1. François (frɑ̃swa), Duc de La Rochefoucauld. 1613–80, French writer. His best-known work is Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales (1665), a collection of epigrammatic and cynical observations on human nature

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The French aphorist François de La Rochefoucauld remarked that “hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026

Such a pensée fits with the French moralist tradition of Montaigne, Pascal and La Rochefoucauld, yet Baudelaire always regarded Edgar Allan Poe, whom he translated, as his spiritual brother.

From Washington Post • May 11, 2022

Dashing and brave, Robert de La Rochefoucauld was a member of the French Resistance who came from an aristocratic family.

From New York Times • Feb. 8, 2018

Paraphrasing François de La Rochefoucauld, I think that hypocrisy is sometimes the homage that truthiness pays to truth.

From Slate • Nov. 17, 2015

Each maxim of La Rochefoucauld is a “gem of purest ray serene,” wrought to the last degree of perfection in form with infinite artistic pains.

From French Classics by Wilkinson, William Cleaver

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