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Self-love is almost always the ruling principle of our friendships. It makes us avoid all our obligations in unprofitable situations, and even causes us to forget our hostility towards our enemies when they become powerful enough to help us achieve fame or fortune.

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

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Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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More quotes by Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

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Often the desire to appear competent impedes our ability to become competent, because we more anxious to display our knowledge than to learn what we do not know.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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When an opinionated person starts to challenge something, his mind shuts out all that could clear up the matter. The argument irritates him, however just it might be, and it seems that he is afraid of discovering the truth.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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Although most friendships that exist do not merit the name, we can nevertheless make use of them in accordance with our needs, as a kind of commercial venture based on uncertain foundations and in which we are very often deceived.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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There is as much wisdom in soliciting good counsel as in giving it. The most sensible people are not reluctant to consider the feelings of other people and to know how to submit to the wise guidance of others is a kind of wisdom in itself.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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We need not regard what good a friend has done us, but only his desire to do us good.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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In knowledge of human affairs, we should never allow our minds to be enslaved by others by subjecting ourselves to their whims. We must maintain freedom of thought, and never accept anything of purely human authority into our heads. When we are presented with a diversity of opinions, we must choose, if we can if we cannot, we must remain in doubt.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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We would often rather seem dutiful to others than to succeed in our duties and often we would rather tell our friends that we have done them good than to do good in actuality.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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We prefer people who are trying to imitate us more than those who are trying to equal us. This is because imitation is a sign of esteem, but the desire to equal others is a sign of envy.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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We must accustom ourselves to the follies of others and not be astonished at the foolishness that takes place in our presence.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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When High and Mighty people want to make us believe that they possess some good quality which they in fact do not have, it is dangerous to show that you doubt them because, by removing their hope of deceiving the world, you also remove their desire to perform the good acts that might have arisen from their very pretensions.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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There is a certain manner of self-absorption in speaking that always renders the speaker disagreeable. For it is as great a folly to listen only to ourselves while we are carrying on a conversation with others as it is to talk to ourselves while we are alone.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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We judge matters so superficially that ordinary acts and words, done and spoken with some flair and some knowledge of worldly matters, often succeed better than the greatest cleverness.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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It is a very trying task for deceitful people, always to have to cover up their lack of sincerity and to repair the breaking of their word.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable