Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

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.

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.

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.

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

False modesty can be worse than arrogance.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Pride perceiving humility honorable, often borrows her cloak.

Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.

What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud.

Persons in high situations must particularly guard themselves against selfishness and vanity. An individual in a high and important situation will easily see a great many persons eager to please the first, and to flatter and encourage the last.

There's a breed of humility which is itself a species of showing off.

Ego suppression can be an act of ostentation.

I don't like false modesty.

Pride is at the bottom of a great many errors and corruptions, and even of many evil practices, which have a great show and appearance of humility.

Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.

I'm afraid you've thought me a bigger fool than I am.

It is one of the triumphs of human wit ... to conquer by humility and submissiveness ... to make oneself small in order to appear great ... such ... are often the expedients of the neurotic.

Never soar aloft on an enemy's pinions.

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom when he can no longer be led by the nose.

My success has depended wholly on putting things over on people, so I'm not sure that I'm that great a role model. I am, however, an expert on pretending to be an expert on pretending to be an expert.

Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his vanity, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.

Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.

Where do you draw the line between a humble man who knows his own weaknesses but tries to act out virtues he hasn't quite mastered yet, and a proud man who pretends to have those virtues without the slightest intention of acquiring them?