"We get so much in the habit..." - Quote by Francois De La Rochefoucauld
We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.
More by Francois De La Rochefoucauld
“We feel good and ill only in proportion to our self-love.”
“Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.”
“Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge that gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit.”
More on Self Deception
“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear - I fear greatly - the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely.”
“We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.”
“We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.”
More on Appearance
“Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces, which expose the whole movement.”
“To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit.”
“For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie smoothly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can't be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.”