A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Quote Topics

Actions Ashamed Best Could Feel Motives Often Our Produced See Should Them Which World

Quote Author

Francois de La Rochefoucauld
French - Writer
September 15, 1613 - March 17, 1680

We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

Saint Teresa of Avila

We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

If those friends who blame...could see what we see, and feel what we feel, they would be the first to wonder that those redeemed by Christ should be so backward in devotion, and know so little of the spirit of self-sacrifice. They would be ashamed of the hesitations that hinder us. But we must remember that it was not by interceding for the world in glory that Jesus saved it. He gave Himself. Our prayers for the evangelization of the world are but a bitter irony as we only give of our superfluity and draw back before the sacrifice of ourselves.

Francois Coillard

I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common temper of mankind is, especially of youth ... that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.

Daniel Defoe

We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.

Victor Hugo

The motives to actions and the inward turns of mind seem in our opinion more necessary to be known than the actions themselves; and much rather would we choose that our reader should clearly understand what our principal actors think than what they do.

Sarah Fielding

When I read that nobody should ever feel ashamed to be alone or to be in a crowd, I realized that I often felt ashamed of both of those things.

Elif Batuman

The sinful actions of men may be sinful, either from the motives which prompt them, the ends in view, or the means by which they are accomplished. God may concur in such acts, from motives, with ends, and in the use of means which are altogether most holy

James Petigru Boyce

In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.

William Ellery Channing

We are ashamed of our thoughts and often see them brought forth by others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The motives even of our best actions will not always bear examination.

Charlotte Lennox

Then we have the silence of the eyes which will always help us to see God. Our eyes are like two windows through which Christ or the world comes to our hearts. Often we need great courage to keep them closed. How often we say, I wish I had not seen this thing, and yet we take so little trouble to overcome the desire to see everything.

Mother Teresa

I don't feel ashamed of my wife's political background, and I don't think she should either. I feel that the people who administered the North of Ireland for the last 20 years should be ashamed. There you are.