The esteem of good men is the reward of our worth, but the reputation of the world in general is the gift of our fate.
Francois de La RochefoucauldNo persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.
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 RochefoucauldWhat makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.
Francois de La RochefoucauldHumility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a morecalculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld