“He loves to imitate. We often imitate the same person without perceiving it, and we neglect our own good qualities for the good qualities of others, which generally do not suit us.”
Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), VII. On Air and Manner
Context: Few men, nevertheless, can have unison in many matters without being a copy of each other, if each follow his natural turn of mind. But in general a person will not wholly follow it. He loves to imitate. We often imitate the same person without perceiving it, and we neglect our own good qualities for the good qualities of others, which generally do not suit us.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
François de La Rochefoucauld 156
French author of maxims and memoirs 1613–1680Related quotes

“We must learn how to imitate Cicero from Cicero himself. Let us imitate him as he imitated others.”
in The Erasmus Reader (1990), p. 130.
Ciceronianus (1528)

“The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.”
Le mal que nous faisons ne nous attire pas tant de persécution et de haine que nos bonnes qualités.
Maxim 29.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Source: The Art of Life (2008), p. 79.

“A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.”
Essays on Men and Manners (1804)

“I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one in the same.”
Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Comment quoted by Matthew Prior in his Life of Burke
Undated
Nītiśataka 74; translated by B. Hale Wortham
Śatakatraya

“It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.”