Duc de La Rochefoucauld

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

Organize one's values in the order of their worth.

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we have left them.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness unless he has strength of character to be wicked. All other goodness is generally nothing but indolence or impotence of will.

It takes a better man to survive good luck than bad.

If we had no faults ourselves, we should not take so much pleasure in remarking them in others.

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.

In most of mankind, gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favours. Note: A saying ascribed to Sir Robert Walpole by Hazlitt in his Wit and Humor: "The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours" is obviously derived from La Rochefoucauld.

Every great action is extreme.