Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

All action is for the sake of some end; and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subservient.

Anything I do, I'm doing it for a reason.

Every perfect action is accompanied by pleasure. By that you can tell what you ought to do.

I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter what we wanted. What matters is what we chose to do with the things we had.

You must take the will for the deed.

Good impulses are naught, unless they become good actions.

If you want to be clear, act.

Anyone can see that intending and not acting when we can is not really intending, and loving and not doing good when we can is not really loving.

People will speculate about what they want, but that is not my intention.

Words are good, but there is something better. The best cannot be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the chief matter. Action can only be only understood and represented by the spirit.

EVERYTHING that happens in the universe starts with an INTENTION

The laws of our being are such that we must perform some degree of use in the world, whether we intend it, or not; but we can deprive ourselves of its indwelling joy, by acting entirely from the love of self.

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.

Love without action is meaningless and action without love is irrelevant.

To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness.

In anything we do, any endeavor, it's not what you do; it's why you do it

The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.

Methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim.

Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it.

I may have had good reasons. I may have had the best of intentions. But intentions aren’t enough, no matter how good they are. Intentions can lead you to a place where you’re able to make a choice. It’s the choice that counts.

Good intentions are useless until they are expressed in appropriate action!

The things he did on purpose were usually no different from the mistakes he made by accident.

You can never be happy until you understand why you're doing what you're doing.

God is always more interested in why we do something than in what we do. Attitudes count more than achievements.