La Rochefoucauld

...he said things that were both deeply revelatory and already well-known, but it was his unflinching courage in acknowledging the facts of human nature that allowed him (and us, if we read him aright) to overcome the double consciousness that causes a man to know and know not, to behave badly and think well of himself. --Theodore Dalrymple, Discovering LaRochefoucauld: lessons from the great French master of the discomfiting aphorism, The New Criterion, April 2001


Recommended reading:
by La Rochefoucauld at Reading Rat