What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
