What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.
Francois de La RochefoucauldWhen great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like other men.
Francois de La RochefoucauldInstead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld