Francois de La Rochefoucauld Action Quotations

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

To praise great actions is in some sense to share them.

A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.

A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon.

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.

No matter how brilliant an action, it should not be considered great unless it was the result of a great motive.

It is praiseworthy even to attempt a great action.

To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.