Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes About Ambition
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What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.
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What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
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When 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.
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The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.
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The ambitious deceive themselves in proposing an end to their ambition; that end, when attained, becomes a means.
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Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.
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On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.
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It is a mighty error to suppose that none but violent and strong passions, such as love and ambition, are able to vanquish the rest. Even idleness, as feeble and languishing as it is, sometimes reigns over them; it usurps the throne and sits paramount over all the designs and actions of our lives, and imperceptibly wastes and destroys all our passions and all our virtues.
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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.
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Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.
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Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
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Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it.
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It is a mistake to imagine, that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she influences all our designs and actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.
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What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.
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The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.
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Moderation cannot have the credit of combatiug and subduing ambition, they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and indolence of the soul, as ambition is its activity and ardor.
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Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld
- Born: September 15, 1613
- Died: March 17, 1680
- Occupation: Author
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