Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

We are so happy to advise others that occasionally we even do it in their interest.

Everybody has an agenda.

I don't think it's good to interact with people with a certain agenda in mind.

Kindness is weak when you use it in a self-serving manner. Self-serving kindness is thin - people can see right through it when a kind leader has an agenda.

Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions.

Some people feel good about helping others, and they do so often. They do not realize that their good deeds have a second agenda. They want to be appreciated.

It's when someone has an agenda of their own for the record that it doesn't work for me.

I was nice to the people in the Philippines for the two and a half years I was there, because I knew eventually I'd have to kiss up to them so my grandchildren could have toys.

We have to look at our history and realize that if they pretend to be our friend it's because they've got something up their sleeve.

It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise.

The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness... and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.

He who goes round about in his requests wants commonly more than he chooses to appear to want.

Men frequently do good only to give themselves opportunity of doing ill with impunity.

I'm buying things for people I don't even know. I'm like Willy Wonka, but more manipulative. Imagine if Willy Wonka had a devious goal.

Beware of anyone who claims to be neutral, for they always have an agenda.

I'm always suspicious of disinterested interest.

class interests in disguise.

Greed has been severely underestimated and denigrated—unfairly so in my opinion. … there's nothing wrong with avarice as a motive as long as it doesn't lead to dishonest … conduct.

I'm interested in people that can say one thing and have completely different motives behind that.

You've just got to be wary around people. You don't know what they want from you. Just in L.A., people have questionable motives. Everybody's kind of got an angle. You've got to be aware of that.

I'll take some to give some because I want to win that bad.

Philanthropy can have a very strong selfish component.

Now, I know a lot of things in the big man's world are not what they seem: a lot of people are out for themselves, and you can't always trust what someone says.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.