A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all. — © Francois de La Rochefoucauld
We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.
Instead of taking care to acquaint ourselves with others, we only think of making ourselves known to them. It would be better to listen to other people in order to become enlightened rather than to speak so as to shine in front of them.
The privilege I've had as a curator is not just the discovery of new works... but what I've discovered about myself and what I can offer in the space of an exhibition - to talk about beauty, to talk about power, to talk about ourselves, and to talk and speak to each other.
We read because they teach us about people, we can see ourselves in them,in their problems.And by seeing ourselves in them, we clarify ourselves, we explain ourselves to ourselves, so we can live with ourselves.
We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.
We are not saints yet, but we, too, should beware. Uprightness and virtue do have their rewards, in self-respect and in respect from others, and it is easy to find ourselves aiming for the result rather than the cause. Let us aim for joy, rather than respectability. Let us make fools of ourselves from time to time, and thus see ourselves, for a moment, as the all-wise God sees us.
When we find ourselves devoid of passion and purpose, the first thing we need to do is stop. But that's not easy. The rest of the world is zooming by at full speed. Left alone with ourselves, without a project to occupy us, we can become nervous and self-critical about what we should be doing and feeling. This can be so uncomfortable that we look for any distraction rather than allowing ourselves the space to be as we are.
It is difficult to see ourselves as we are. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have good friends, lovers or others who will do us the good service of telling us the truth about ourselves. When we don't, we can so easily delude ourselves, lose a sense of truth about ourselves, and our conscience loses power and purpose. Mostly, we tell ourselves what we would like to hear. We lose our way.
If we would talk more about the Lord and praise Him, we would have less time to talk about ourselves.
There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth.
We begin selling ourselves on what we want to do rather than what we ought to do. We listen to ourselves until we believe our own lies, and the we opt for happiness.
Rather than being taught to accept ourselves, we were trained to make ourselves socially acceptable. And whenever we fail, we suffer inside.
If we don't get violent with ourselves, castigate ourselves, ostracize ourselves and excommunicate ourselves because we didn't live up to the standards we set down for ourselves, then maybe we don't have to do that with other people.
No one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it.
We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us
We are creatures of our thinking. We can talk ourselves into defeat or we can talk ourselves into victory.
The philosophy of fasting calls upon us to know ourselves, to master ourselves, and to discipline ourselves the better to free ourselves. To fast is to identify our dependencies, and free ourselves from them.
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