French moralist of the era of French Classical literature and author of Maximes and Memoirs
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.
Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love.
Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.
Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.
We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.
Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.