Francois de La Rochefoucauld Vanity Quotations

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.

What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.

Penetration has an air of divination; it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind.

Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.

The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.

The most effectual way to be deceived is to believe oneself more cunning than one's neighbors.

The courage of a great many men, and the virtue of a great many women, are the effect of vanity, shame, and especially a suitabletemperament.

We often brag that we are never bored with ourselves, and are so vain as never to think ourselves bad company.

The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.

Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.

Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.

The exceeding delight we take in talking about ourselves should give us cause to fear that we are giving but very little pleasureto our listeners.

Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.

Flattery is a base coin which is current only through our vanity.

People are more slanderous from vanity than from malice.

What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.

Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.

What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.

What is called liberality is often merely the vanity of giving.

If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter.

We speak little if not egged on by vanity.

Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.

The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.

Generosity is the vanity of giving.

That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.

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