Francois de La Rochefoucauld Rid Quotations

Humility is often merely feigned submissiveness assumed in order to subject others, an artifice of pride which stoops to conquer, and although pride has a thousand ways of transforming itself it is never so well disguised and able to take people in as when masquerading as humility.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.

Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour.

We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, but envy is a timid and shamefaced passion we never dare to acknowledge.

Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise.

It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.

It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it ridiculous to show it to others.

When you plant a seed of love, it is you that blossoms. Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom from the Patterns That Bind You There are two kinds of faithfulness in love: one is based on forever finding new things to love in the loved one; the other is based on our pride in being faithful.

It is as commendable to think well of oneself when alone, as it is ridiculous to speak well of oneself among others.

Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives.

The qualities we have, make us so ridiculous as those which we affect.

It seems that nature, which has so wisely disposed our bodily organs with a view to our happiness, has also bestowed on us pride, to spare us the pain of being aware of our imperfections.

If we did not have pride, we would not complain of it in others.

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

We are never so ridiculous through what we are as through what we pretend to be.

People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune.

Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride.

Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.

A man is ridiculous less through the characteristics he has than through those he affects to have.

A readiness to believe ill of others, before we have duly examined it, is the effect of laziness and pride. We are eager to find aculprit, and loath to give ourselves the trouble of examining the crime.

Humility is the sure evidence of Christian virtues. Without it, we retain all our faults still, and they are only covered over with pride, which hides them from other men's observation, and sometimes from our own too.

What we cut off from our other faults is very often but so much added to our pride.

Nothing ought in reason to mortify our self-satisfaction more that the considering that we condemn at one time what we highly approve and commend at another.

Were we not proud ourselves, we should not complain of the pride of others.

All men are equally proud. The only difference is that not all take the same methods of showing it.

Humility 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.

Constancy in love is of two sorts: One is the effect of new excellencies that are always presenting themselves afresh, and attractour affections continually; the other is only from a point of honor, and a taking of pride not to change.

Pride has a greater share than goodness in the reproofs we give other people for their faults; and we chide them not so much to make them mend those faults as to make them believe that we ourselves are without fault.

The qualities we have do not make us so ridiculous as those which we affect to have. [Fr., On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que l'on a que par celles que l'on affecte d'avoir.]

Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest.

Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.

Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.

The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it; it deprives them of knowledge of remedies which can solace their miseries and can cure their faults.

What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.

Pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away vanity.

That conduct often seems ridiculous the secret reasons of which are wise and solid.