A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Quote Topics

Interest Name Pretense Real Self Self-Interest Vices Virtue

Quote Author

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

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices. It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear.

Alan Greenspan

It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent.

Alan Watts

It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you – that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers are always right, but people aren't.

Eli Pariser

Remember: there is no place, no community, no external circumstance that is not serviceable for the battle you have chosen. The exception is only such work as directly serves your vices.

Tito Colliander

Politics now is really only about self-interest, which means it has violence built into it because your self-interest is going to collide with the self-interest of the rest of the world. That's inevitable.

Pankaj Mishra

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Marilyn Monroe wasn't even her real name, Charles Manson isn't his real name, and now, I'm taking that to be my real name. But what's real? You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like the best.

Marilyn Manson

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Henry IV of England

It is said that “there is a self,” but “non-self” too is taught. The buddhas also teach there is nothing which is “neither self nor non-self.” Everything is real, not real; both real and not real; neither not real nor real: this is the teaching of the Buddha.

Nagarjun

Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us.

Robert Staughton Lynd

The dangers of apparent self-sufficiency explain why Our Lord regards the vices of the feckless and dissipated so much more leniently than the vices that lead to worldly success.

C. S. Lewis

Of all vices take heed of drunkenness; other vices are but fruits of disordered affections--this disorders, nay, banishes reason; other vices but impair the soul--this demolishes her two chief faculties, the understanding and the will; other vices make their own way--this makes way for all vices; he that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.