The philosophers’ scorn of wealth was but their secret ambition to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising those blessings which Fate had denied them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.
The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of not possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.
François de La Rochefoucauld – Sentences and Moral Maxims