1.—What we term virtue is often
but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which
fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not
always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and
women chaste.
"Who combats bravely is
not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest
slave; Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in
reasoning, not in acting, lies." Pope, Moral Essays, Ep.
i. line 115.
2.—Self-love is the
greatest of flatterers.
3.—Whatever discoveries
have been made in the region of self-love, there remain many
unexplored territories there.
[This is the first hint
of the system the author tries to develope. He wishes to find in
vice a motive for all our actions, but this does not suffice
him; he is obliged to call other passions to the help of his
system and to confound pride, vanity, interest and egotism with
self love. This confusion destroys the unity of his principle.—Aimé
Martin.]
4.—Self love is more
cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
5.—The duration of our
passions is no more dependant upon us than the duration of our
life. [Then what becomes of free will?—Aimé; Martin]
6.—Passion often renders
the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes renders the most
foolish man clever.
7.—Great and striking
actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by politicians as
the effect of great designs, instead of which they are commonly
caused by the temper and the passions. Thus the war between
Augustus and Anthony, which is set down to the ambition they
entertained of making themselves masters of the world, was
probably but an effect of jealousy.
8.—The passions are the
only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art,
the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with
passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
[See Maxim 249 which is
an illustration of this.]
9.—The passions possess a
certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to
follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when
they appear most trustworthy.
10.—In the human heart
there is a perpetual generation of passions; so that the ruin of
one is almost always the foundation of another.
11.—Passions often produce
their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and
prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness
and daring though timidity.
12.—Whatever care we take
to conceal our passions under the appearances of piety and
honour, they are always to be seen through these veils.
[The 1st edition, 1665,
preserves the image perhaps better—"however we may conceal our
passions under the veil, etc., there is always some place where
they peep out."]
13.—Our self love endures
more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our
opinions.
14.—Men are not only prone
to forget benefits and injuries; they even hate those who have
obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The
necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a benefit
seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.
15.—The clemency of Princes
is often but policy to win the affections of the people.
["So many are the
advantages which monarchs gain by clemency, so greatly does it
raise their fame and endear them to their subjects, that it is
generally happy for them to have an opportunity of displaying
it."—Montesquieu, Esprit Des Lois, Lib. VI., C. 21.]
16.—This clemency of which
they make a merit, arises oftentimes from vanity, sometimes from
idleness, oftentimes from fear, and almost always from all three
combined.
[La Rochefoucauld is
content to paint the age in which he lived. Here the clemency
spoken of is nothing more than an expression of the policy of
Anne of Austria. Rochefoucauld had sacrificed all to her; even
the favour of Cardinal Richelieu, but when she became regent she
bestowed her favours upon those she hated; her friends were
forgotten.—Aimé Martin. The reader will hereby see that
the age in which the writer lived best interprets his maxims.]
17.—The moderation of those
who are happy arises from the calm which good fortune bestows
upon their temper.
18.—Moderation is caused by
the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who
are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of
our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at
their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than
their fortune.
19.—We have all sufficient
strength to support the misfortunes of others.
[The strongest example
of this is the passage in Lucretius, lib. ii., line I:— "Suave
mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis E terra magnum alterius
spectare laborem."]
20.—The constancy of the
wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their
hearts.
[Thus wisdom is only
hypocrisy, says a commentator. This definition of constancy is a
result of maxim 18.]
21.—Those who are condemned
to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death
which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that
this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage
is to their eyes.
[See this thought
elaborated in maxim 504.]
22.—Philosophy triumphs
easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils
triumph over it.
23.—Few people know death,
we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from
stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know
not how to prevent dying.
24.—When great men permit
themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune,
they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not
by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like
other men.
[Both these maxims have
been rewritten and made conciser by the author; the variations
are not worth quoting.]
25.—We need greater virtues
to sustain good than evil fortune.
["Prosperity do{th} best
discover vice, but adversity do{th} best discover virtue."—Lord
Bacon, Essays{, (1625), "Of Adversity"}.]
{The quotation wrongly
had "does" for "doth".}
26.—Neither the sun nor
death can be looked at without winking.
27.—People are often vain
of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so
timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her.
28.—Jealousy is in a manner
just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which
belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand
envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.
29.—The evil that we do
does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our
good qualities.
30.—We have more strength
than will; and it is often merely for an excuse we say things
are impossible.
31.—If we had no faults we
should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.
32.—Jealousy lives upon
doubt; and comes to an end or becomes a fury as soon as it
passes from doubt to certainty.
33.—Pride indemnifies
itself and loses nothing even when it casts away vanity.
[See maxim 450, where
the author states, what we take from our other faults we add to
our pride.]
34.—If we had no pride we
should not complain of that of others.
["The proud are ever
most provoked by pride."—Cowper, Conversation 160.]
35.—Pride is much the same
in all men, the only difference is the method and manner of
showing it.
["Pride bestowed on all
a common friend."—Pope, Essay On Man, Ep. ii., line 273.]
36.—It would seem that
nature, which has so wisely ordered the organs of our body for
our happiness, has also given us pride to spare us the
mortification of knowing our imperfections.
37.—Pride has a larger part
than goodness in our remonstrances with those who commit faults,
and we reprove them not so much to correct as to persuade them
that we ourselves are free from faults.
38.—We promise according to
our hopes; we perform according to our fears.
["The reason why the
Cardinal (Mazarin) deferred so long to grant the favours he had
promised, was because he was persuaded that hope was much more
capable of keeping men to their duty than gratitude."—Fragments
Historiques. Racine.]
39.—Interest speaks all
sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of characters; even that of
disinterestedness.
40.—Interest blinds some
and makes some see.
41.—Those who apply
themselves too closely to little things often become incapable
of great things.
42.—We have not enough
strength to follow all our reason.
43.—A man often believes
himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavours to reach
one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.
44.—Strength and weakness
of mind are mis-named; they are really only the good or happy
arrangement of our bodily organs.
45.—The caprice of our
temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune.
46.—The attachment or
indifference which philosophers have shown to life is only the
style of their self love, about which we can no more dispute
than of that of the palate or of the choice of colours.
47.—Our temper sets a price
upon every gift that we receive from fortune.
48.—Happiness is in the
taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from
possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.
49.—We are never so happy
or so unhappy as we suppose.
50.—Those who think they
have merit persuade themselves that they are honoured by being
unhappy, in order to persuade others and themselves that they
are worthy to be the butt of fortune.
["Ambition has been so
strong as to make very miserable men take comfort that they were
supreme in misery; and certain it is{, that where} we cannot
distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a
complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of
one kind or other." —Burke, {On The Sublime And Beautiful,
(1756), Part I, Sect. XVII}.]
{The translators'
incorrectly cite Speech On Conciliation With America.
Also, Burke does not actually write "Ambition has been...", he
writes "It has been..." when speaking of ambition.}
51.—Nothing should so much
diminish the satisfaction which we feel with ourselves as seeing
that we disapprove at one time of that which we approve of at
another.
52.—Whatever difference
there appears in our fortunes, there is nevertheless a certain
compensation of good and evil which renders them equal.
53.—Whatever great
advantages nature may give, it is not she alone, but fortune
also that makes the hero.
54.—The contempt of riches
in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit
upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of
which fortune had deprived 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.
["It is always easy as
well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim
merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune
has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive
Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently
guarded by poverty and ignorance."—Gibbon, Decline And Fall,
Chap. 15.]
55.—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.
56.—To establish ourselves
in the world we do everything to appear as if we were
established.
57.—Although men flatter
themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the
result of a great design as of chance.
58.—It would seem that our
actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which they owe a great
part of the blame or praise which is given them.
59.—There are no accidents
so unfortunate from which skilful men will not draw some
advantage, nor so fortunate that foolish men will not turn them
to their hurt.
60.—Fortune turns all
things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles.
61.—The happiness or
unhappiness of men depends no less upon their dispositions than
their fortunes.
["Still to ourselves in
every place consigned Our own felicity we make or find."
Goldsmith, Traveller, 431.]
62.—Sincerity is an
openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we
usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the
confidence of others.
63.—The aversion to lying
is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and
weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.
64.—Truth does not do as
much good in the world, as its counterfeits do evil.
65.—There is no praise we
have not lavished upon Prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us
the most trifling event.
[The author corrected
this maxim several times, in 1665 it is No. 75; 1666, No. 66;
1671-5, No. 65; in the last edition it stands as at present. In
the first he quotes Juvenal, Sat. X., line 315. " Nullum numen
habes si sit Prudentia, nos te; Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam,
coeloque locamus." Applying to Prudence what Juvenal does to
Fortune, and with much greater force.]
66.—A clever man ought to
so regulate his interests that each will fall in due order. Our
greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many
things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after
the least we miss the greatest.
67.—What grace is to the
body good sense is to the mind.
68.—It is difficult to
define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire
to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a
hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love—Plus
many mysteries.
["Love is the love of
one {singularly,} with desire to be singularly beloved."—Hobbes{Leviathan,
(1651), Part I, Chapter VI}.]
{Two notes about this
quotation: (1) the translators' mistakenly have "singularity"
for the first "singularly" and (2) Hobbes does not actually
write "Love is the..."—he writes "Love of one..." under the
heading "The passion of Love."}
69.—If there is a pure
love, exempt from the mixture of our other passions, it is that
which is concealed at the bottom of the heart and of which even
ourselves are ignorant.
70.—There is no disguise
which can long hide love where it exists, nor feign it where it
does not.
71.—There are few people
who would not be ashamed of being beloved when they love no
longer.
72.—If we judge of love by
the majority of its results it rather resembles hatred than
friendship.
73.—We may find women who
have never indulged in an intrigue, but it is rare to find those
who have intrigued but once.
["Yet there are some,
they say, who have had {None}; But those who have, ne'er
end with only one}." {—Lord Byron, }Don Juan, {Canto}
iii., stanza 4.]
74.—There is only one sort
of love, but there are a thousand different copies.
75.—Neither love nor fire
can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon
as they cease to hope, or to fear.
[So Lord Byron{Stanzas,
(1819), stanza 3} says of Love— "Like chiefs of faction, His
life is action."]
76.—There is real love just
as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it, few persons
have seen it.
["Oh Love! no habitant
of earth thou art— An unseen seraph, we believe in thee— A faith
whose martyrs are the broken heart,— But never yet hath seen,
nor e'er shall see The naked eye, thy form as it should be."
{—Lord Byron, }Childe Harold, {Canto} iv., stanza 121.]
77.—Love lends its name to
an infinite number of engagements (Commerces) which are
attributed to it, but with which it has no more concern than the
Doge has with all that is done in Venice.
78.—The love of justice is
simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.
79.—Silence is the best
resolve for him who distrusts himself.
80.—What renders us so
changeable in our friendship is, that it is difficult to know
the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of the mind.
81.—We can love nothing but
what agrees with us, and we can only follow our taste or our
pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless
it is only by that preference that friendship can be true and
perfect.
82.—Reconciliation with our
enemies is but a desire to better our condition, a weariness of
war, the fear of some unlucky accident.
["Thus terminated that
famous war of the Fronde. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld desired
peace because of his dangerous wounds and ruined castles, which
had made him dread even worse events. On the other side the
Queen, who had shown herself so ungrateful to her too ambitious
friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of their
resentment. ‘I wish,' said she, ‘it were always night, because
daylight shows me so many who have betrayed me.'"—Memoires De
Madame De Motteville, Tom. IV., p. 60. Another proof that
although these maxims are in some cases of universal
application, they were based entirely on the experience of the
age in which the author lived.]
83.—What men term
friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of
reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours—in fact it is
but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something.
84.—It is more disgraceful
to distrust than to be deceived by our friends.
85.—We often persuade
ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet
interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our
hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect
to receive.
86.—Our distrust of another
justifies his deceit.
87.—Men would not live long
in society were they not the dupes of each other.
[A maxim, adds Aimé
Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but
one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have
scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."—2
TIM. iii. 13.]
88.—Self love increases or
diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in
proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them, and we judge
of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.
89.—Everyone blames his
memory, no one blames his judgment.
90.—In the intercourse of
life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities.
91.—The largest ambition
has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an
absolute impossibility in compassing its object.
92.—To awaken a man who is
deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that
done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all
the ships touching at the port belonged to him.
[That is, they cured
him. The madman was Thrasyllus, son of Pythodorus. His brother
Crito cured him, when he infinitely regretted the time of his
more pleasant madness.—See Aelian, Var. Hist. iv. 25. So
Horace— ——————"Pol, me occidistis, amici, Non servastis," ait,
"cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus
error." HOR. EP. ii—2, 138, of the madman who was cured of a
pleasant lunacy.]
93.—Old men delight in
giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can
no longer set bad examples.
94.—Great names degrade
instead of elevating those who know not how to sustain them.
95.—The test of
extraordinary merit is to see those who envy it the most yet
obliged to praise it.
96.—A man is perhaps
ungrateful, but often less chargeable with ingratitude than his
benefactor is.
97.—We are deceived if we
think that mind and judgment are two different matters: judgment
is but the extent of the light of the mind. This light
penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be
remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we
must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that
produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment.
98.—Everyone praises his
heart, none dare praise their understanding.
99.—Politeness of mind
consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.
100.—Gallantry of mind is
saying the most empty things in an agreeable manner.
101.—Ideas often flash
across our minds more complete than we could make them after
much labour.
102.—The head is ever the
dupe of the heart.
[A feeble imitation of
that great thought "All folly comes from the heart."—Aimé
Martin. But Bonhome, in his L'art De Penser, says
"Plusieurs diraient en période quarré que quelques reflexions
que fasse l'esprit et quelques resolutions qu'il prenne pour
corriger ses travers le premier sentiment du coeur renverse tous
ses projets. Mais il n'appartient qu'a M. de la Rochefoucauld de
dire tout en un mot que l'esprit est toujours la dupe du
coeur."]
103.—Those who know their
minds do not necessarily know their hearts.
104.—Men and things have
each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is
necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly
but at a distance.
105.—A man for whom
accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is
so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.
106.—To understand matters
rightly we should understand their details, and as that
knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always
superficial and imperfect.
107.—One kind of flirtation
is to boast we never flirt.
108.—The head cannot long
play the part of the heart.
109.—Youth changes its
tastes by the warmth of its blood, age retains its tastes by
habit.
110.—Nothing is given so
profusely as advice.
111.—The more we love a
woman the more prone we are to hate her.
112.—The blemishes of the
mind, like those of the face, increase by age.
113.—There may be good but
there are no pleasant marriages.
114.—We are inconsolable at
being deceived by our enemies and betrayed by our friends, yet
still we are often content to be thus served by ourselves.
115.—It is as easy
unwittingly to deceive oneself as to deceive others.
116.—Nothing is less
sincere than the way of asking and giving advice. The person
asking seems to pay deference to the opinion of his friend,
while thinking in reality of making his friend approve his
opinion and be responsible for his conduct. The person giving
the advice returns the confidence placed in him by eager and
disinterested zeal, in doing which he is usually guided only by
his own interest or reputation.
["I have often thought
how ill-natured a maxim it was which on many occasions I have
heard from people of good understanding, ‘That as to what
related to private conduct no one was ever the better for
advice.' But upon further examination I have resolved with
myself that the maxim might be admitted without any violent
prejudice to mankind. For in the manner advice was generally
given there was no reason I thought to wonder it should be so
ill received, something there was which strangely inverted the
case, and made the giver to be the only gainer. For by what I
could observe in many occurrences of our lives, that which we
called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our
own wisdom at another's expense. On the other side to be
instructed or to receive advice on the terms usually prescribed
to us was little better than tamely to afford another the
occasion of raising himself a character from our defects."—Lord
Shaftesbury, Characteristics, i., 153.]
117.—The most subtle of our
acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set
for us. We are never so easily deceived as when trying to
deceive.
118.—The intention of never
deceiving often exposes us to deception.
119.—We become so
accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that at last we are
disguised to ourselves.
["Those who quit their
proper character{,} to assume what does not belong to them,
are{,} for the greater part{,} ignorant both of the character
they leave{,} and of the character they assume."—Burke, {Reflections
On The Revolution In France, (1790), Paragraph 19}.]
{The translators'
incorrectly cite Thoughts On The Cause Of The Present
Discontents.}
120.—We often act
treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed motive.
121.—We frequently do good
to enable us with impunity to do evil.
122.—If we conquer our
passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.
123.—If we never flattered
ourselves we should have but scant pleasure.
124.—The most deceitful
persons spend their lives in blaming deceit, so as to use it on
some great occasion to promote some great interest.
125.—The daily employment
of cunning marks a little mind, it generally happens that those
who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves lay
themselves open to attack in another.
["With that low cunning
which in fools supplies, And amply, too, the place of being
wise." Churchill, Rosciad, 117.]
126.—Cunning and treachery
are the offspring of incapacity.
127.—The true way to be
deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.
128.—Too great cleverness
is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is the most substantial
cleverness.
129.—It is sometimes
necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning
men.
130.—Weakness is the only
fault which cannot be cured.
131.—The smallest fault of
women who give themselves up to love is to love. [———"Faciunt
graviora coactae Imperio sexus minimumque libidine peccant."
Juvenal, Sat. vi., 134.]
132.—It is far easier to be
wise for others than to be so for oneself.
[Hence the proverb, "A
man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client."]
133.—The only good examples
are those, that make us see the absurdity of bad originals.
134.—We are never so
ridiculous from the habits we have as from those that we affect
to have.
135.—We sometimes differ
more widely from ourselves than we do from others.
136.—There are some who
never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.
137.—When not prompted by
vanity we say little.
138.—A man would rather say
evil of himself than say nothing.
["Montaigne's vanity led
him to talk perpetually of himself, and as often happens to vain
men, he would rather talk of his own failings than of any
foreign subject."— Hallam, Literature Of Europe.]
139.—One of the reasons
that we find so few persons rational and agreeable in
conversation is there is hardly a person who does not think more
of what he wants to say than of his answer to what is said. The
most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive
while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time
they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to
what they want to say. Instead of considering that the worst way
to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please
ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some
of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.
["An absent man can make
but few observations, he can pursue nothing steadily because his
absences make him lose his way. They are very disagreeable and
hardly to be tolerated in old age, but in youth they cannot be
forgiven." —Lord Chesterfield, Letter 195.]
140.—If it was not for the
company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.
141.—We often boast that we
are never bored, but yet we are so conceited that we do not
perceive how often we bore others.
142.—As it is the mark of
great minds to say many things in a few words, so it is that of
little minds to use many words to say nothing.
["So much they talked,
so very little said." Churchill, Rosciad, 550.
"Men who are unequal to
the labour of discussing an argument or wish to avoid it, are
willing enough to suppose that much has been proved because much
has been said."— Junius, Jan. 1769.]
143.—It is oftener by the
estimation of our own feelings that we exaggerate the good
qualities of others than by their merit, and when we praise them
we wish to attract their praise.
144.—We do not like to
praise, and we never praise without a motive. Praise is
flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently
him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the
reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality
and knowledge.
145.—We often select
envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise,
shows faults we could not have shown by other means.
146.—Usually we only praise
to be praised.
147.—Few are sufficiently
wise to prefer censure which is useful to praise which is
treacherous.
148.—Some reproaches
praise; some praises reproach.
["Damn with faint
praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the
rest to sneer." Pope {Essay On Man, (1733), Epistle To Dr.
Arbuthnot.}]
149.—The refusal of praise
is only the wish to be praised twice.
[The modesty which
pretends to refuse praise is but in truth a desire to be praised
more highly. Edition 1665.]
150.—The desire which urges
us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise
given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.
151.—It is easier to govern
others than to prevent being governed.
152.—If we never flattered
ourselves the flattery of others would not hurt us.
["Adulatione servilia
fingebant securi de fragilitate credentis." Tacit. Ann. xvi.]
153.—Nature makes merit but
fortune sets it to work.
154.—Fortune cures us of
many faults that reason could not.
155.—There are some persons
who only disgust with their abilities, there are persons who
please even with their faults.
156.—There are persons
whose only merit consists in saying and doing stupid things at
the right time, and who ruin all if they change their manners.
157.—The fame of great men
ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it.
158.—Flattery is base coin
to which only our vanity gives currency.
159.—It is not enough to
have great qualities, we should also have the management of
them.
160.—However brilliant an
action it should not be esteemed great unless the result of a
great motive.
161.—A certain harmony
should be kept between actions and ideas if we desire to
estimate the effects that they produce.
162.—The art of using
moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires
more reputation than real brilliancy.
163.—Numberless arts appear
foolish whose secre{t} motives are most wise and weighty.
164.—It is much easier to
seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do.
165.—Ability wins us the
esteem of the true men, luck that of the people.
166.—The world oftener
rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself.
167.—Avarice is more
opposed to economy than to liberality.
168.—However deceitful hope
may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to the end of life.
["Hope travels through,
nor quits us when we die." Pope: Essay On Man, Ep. ii.]
169.—Idleness and fear
keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the
praise.
["Quod segnitia erat
sapientia vocaretur." Tacitus Hist. I.]
170.—If one acts rightly
and honestly, it is difficult to decide whether it is the effect
of integrity or skill.
171.—As rivers are lost in
the sea so are virtues in self.
172.—If we thoroughly
consider the varied effects of indifference we find we miscarry
more in our duties than in our interests.
173.—There are different
kinds of curiosity: one springs from interest, which makes us
desire to know everything that may be profitable to us; another
from pride, which springs from a desire of knowing what others
are ignorant of.
174.—It is far better to
accustom our mind to bear the ills we have than to speculate on
those which may befall us.
["Rather bear th{ose}
ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of."
{—Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I, Hamlet.}]
175.—Constancy in love is a
perpetual inconstancy which causes our heart to attach itself to
all the qualities of the person we love in succession, sometimes
giving the preference to one, sometimes to another. This
constancy is merely inconstancy fixed, and limited to the same
person.
176.—There are two kinds of
constancy in love, one arising from incessantly finding in the
loved one fresh objects to love, the other from regarding it as
a point of honour to be constant.
177.—Perseverance is not
deserving of blame or praise, as it is merely the continuance of
tastes and feelings which we can neither create or destroy.
178.—What makes us like new
studies is not so much the weariness we have of the old or the
wish for change as the desire to be admired by those who know
more than ourselves, and the hope of advantage over those who
know less.
179.—We sometimes complain
of the levity of our friends to justify our own by anticipation.
180.—Our repentance is not
so much sorrow for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that
may happen to us.
181.—One sort of
inconstancy springs from levity or weakness of mind, and makes
us accept everyone's opinion, and another more excusable comes
from a surfeit of matter.
182.—Vices enter into the
composition of virtues as poison into that of medicines.
Prudence collects and blends the two and renders them useful
against the ills of life.
183.—For the credit of
virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are
those into which they fall through their crimes.
184.—We admit our faults to
repair by our sincerity the evil we have done in the opinion of
others.
[In the edition of 1665
this maxim stands as No. 200. We never admit our faults except
through vanity.]
185.—There are both heroes
of evil and heroes of good.
[Ut alios industria ita
hunc ignavia protulerat ad famam, habebaturque non ganeo et
profligator sed erudito luxu. —Tacit. Ann. xvi.]
186.—We do not despise all
who have vices, but we do despise all who have not virtues.
["If individuals have no
virtues their vices may be of use to us."—Junius, 5th
Oct. 1771.]
187.—The name of virtue is
as useful to our interest as that of vice.
188.—The health of the mind
is not less uncertain than that of the body, and when passions
seem furthest removed we are no less in danger of infection than
of falling ill when we are well.
189.—It seems that nature
has at man's birth fixed the bounds of his virtues and vices.
190.—Great men should not
have great faults.
191.—We may say vices wait
on us in the course of our life as the landlords with whom we
successively lodge, and if we travelled the road twice over I
doubt if our experience would make us avoid them.
192.—When our vices leave
us we flatter ourselves with the idea we have left them.
193.—There are relapses in
the diseases of the mind as in those of the body; what we call a
cure is often no more than an intermission or change of disease.
194.—The defects of the
mind are like the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to
heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of
their reopening.
195.—The reason which often
prevents us abandoning a single vice is having so many.
196.—We easily forget those
faults which are known only to ourselves.
[Seneca says "Innocentem
quisque se dicit respiciens testem non conscientiam."]
197.—There are men of whom
we can never believe evil without having seen it. Yet there are
very few in whom we should be surprised to see it.
198.—We exaggerate the
glory of some men to detract from that of others, and we should
praise Prince Condé and Marshal Turenne much less if we did not
want to blame them both.
[The allusion to Condé
and Turenne gives the date at which these maxims were published
in 1665. Condé and Turenne were after their campaign with the
Imperialists at the height of their fame. It proves the truth of
the remark of Tacitus, "Populus neminem sine aemulo sinit."—
Tac. Ann. xiv.]
199.—The desire to appear
clever often prevents our being so.
200.—Virtue would not go
far did not vanity escort her.
201.—He who thinks he has
the power to content the world greatly deceives himself, but he
who thinks that the world cannot be content with him deceives
himself yet more.
202.—Falsely honest men are
those who disguise their faults both to themselves and others;
truly honest men are those who know them perfectly and confess
them.
203.—He is really wise who
is nettled at nothing.
204.—The coldness of women
is a balance and burden they add to their beauty.
205.—Virtue in woman is
often the love of reputation and repose.
206.—He is a truly good man
who desires always to bear the inspection of good men.
207.—Folly follows us at
all stages of life. If one appears wise 'tis but because his
folly is proportioned to his age and fortune.
208.—There are foolish
people who know and who skilfully use their folly.
209.—Who lives without
folly is not so wise as he thinks.
210.—In growing old we
become more foolish—and more wise.
211.—There are people who
are like farces, which are praised but for a time (however
foolish and distasteful they may be).
[The last clause is
added from Edition of 1665.]
212.—Most people judge men
only by success or by fortune.
213.—Love of glory, fear of
shame, greed of fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and
comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others are often causes
of that bravery so vaunted among men.
[Junius said of the
Marquis of Granby, "He was as brave as a total absence of all
feeling and reflection could make him."—21st Jan. 1769.]
214.—Valour in common
soldiers is a perilous method of earning their living.
["Men venture necks to
gain a fortune, The soldier does it ev{'}ry day, (Eight to the
week) for sixpence pay." {—Samuel Butler,} Hudibras, Part
II., canto i., line 512.]
215.—Perfect bravery and
sheer cowardice are two extremes rarely found. The space between
them is vast, and embraces all other sorts of courage. The
difference between them is not less than between faces and
tempers. Men will freely expose themselves at the beginning of
an action, and relax and be easily discouraged if it should
last. Some are content to satisfy worldly honour, and beyond
that will do little else. Some are not always equally masters of
their timidity. Others allow themselves to be overcome by panic;
others charge because they dare not remain at their posts. Some
may be found whose courage is strengthened by small perils,
which prepare them to face greater dangers. Some will dare a
sword cut and flinch from a bullet; others dread bullets little
and fear to fight with swords. These varied kinds of courage
agree in this, that night, by increasing fear and concealing
gallant or cowardly actions, allows men to spare themselves.
There is even a more general discretion to be observed, for we
meet with no man who does all he would have done if he were
assured of getting off scot-free; so that it is certain that the
fear of death does somewhat subtract from valour.
[See also "Table Talk of
Napoleon," who agrees with this, so far as to say that few, but
himself, had a two o'clock of the morning valour.]
216.—Perfect valour is to
do without witnesses what one would do before all the world.
["It is said of untrue
valours that some men's valours are in the eyes of them that
look on."—Bacon, Advancement Of Learning{, (1605), Book
I, Section II, paragraph 5}.]
217.—Intrepidity is an
extraordinary strength of soul which raises it above the
troubles, disorders, and emotions which the sight of great
perils can arouse in it: by this strength heroes maintain a calm
aspect and preserve their reason and liberty in the most
surprising and terrible accidents.
218.—Hypocrisy is the
homage vice pays to virtue.
[So Massillon, in one of
his sermons, "Vice pays homage to virtue in doing honour to her
appearance."
So Junius, writing to
the Duke of Grafton, says, "You have done as much mischief to
the community as Machiavel, if Machiavel had not known that an
appearance of morals and religion are useful in society."—28
Sept. 1771.]
219.—Most men expose
themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do
so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the
design for which they expose themselves succeed.
220.—Vanity, shame, and
above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.
["Vanity bids all her
sons be brave and all her daughters chaste and courteous. But
why do we need her instruction?"—Sterne, Sermons.]
221.—We do not wish to lose
life; we do wish to gain glory, and this makes brave men show
more tact and address in avoiding death, than rogues show in
preserving their fortunes.
222.—Few persons on the
first approach of age do not show wherein their body, or their
mind, is beginning to fail.
223.—Gratitude is as the
good faith of merchants: it holds commerce together; and we do
not pay because it is just to pay debts, but because we shall
thereby more easily find people who will lend.
224.—All those who pay the
debts of gratitude cannot thereby flatter themselves that they
are grateful.
225.—What makes false
reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver
and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.
["The first foundation
of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the
equality with which they are received, and may be
returned."—Junius's Letter To The King.]
226.—Too great a hurry to
discharge of an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
227.—Lucky people are bad
hands at correcting their faults; they always believe that they
are right when fortune backs up their vice or folly.
["The power of fortune
is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all
their success to prudence and merit."—Swift, Thoughts On
Various Subjects]
228.—Pride will not owe,
self-love will not pay.
229.—The good we have
received from a man should make us excuse the wrong he does us.
230.—Nothing is so
infectious as example, and we never do great good or evil
without producing the like. We imitate good actions by
emulation, and bad ones by the evil of our nature, which shame
imprisons until example liberates.
231.—It is great folly to
wish only to be wise.
232.—Whatever pretext we
give to our afflictions it is always interest or vanity that
causes them.
233.—In afflictions there
are various kinds of hypocrisy. In one, under the pretext of
weeping for one dear to us we bemoan ourselves; we regret her
good opinion of us, we deplore the loss of our comfort, our
pleasure, our consideration. Thus the dead have the credit of
tears shed for the living. I affirm 'tis a kind of hypocrisy
which in these afflictions deceives itself. There is another
kind not so innocent because it imposes on all the world, that
is the grief of those who aspire to the glory of a noble and
immortal sorrow. After Time, which absorbs all, has obliterated
what sorrow they had, they still obstinately obtrude their
tears, their sighs their groans, they wear a solemn face, and
try to persuade others by all their acts, that their grief will
end only with their life. This sad and distressing vanity is
commonly found in ambitious women. As their sex closes to them
all paths to glory, they strive to render themselves celebrated
by showing an inconsolable affliction. There is yet another kind
of tears arising from but small sources, which flow easily and
cease as easily. One weeps to achieve a reputation for
tenderness, weeps to be pitied, weeps to be bewept, in fact one
weeps to avoid the disgrace of not weeping!
["In grief the {Pleasure}
is still uppermost{;} and the affliction we suffer has no
resemblance to absolute pain which is always odious, and which
we endeavour to shake off as soon as possible."—Burke,
Sublime And Beautiful{, (1756), Part I, Sect. V}.]
234.—It is more often from
pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to
current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not
want to be the last.
235.—We are easily consoled
at the misfortunes of our friends when they enable us to prove
our tenderness for them.
236.—It would seem that
even self-love may be the dupe of goodness and forget itself
when we work for others. And yet it is but taking the shortest
way to arrive at its aim, taking usury under the pretext of
giving, in fact winning everybody in a subtle and delicate
manner.
237.—No one should be
praised for his goodness if he has not strength enough to be
wicked. All other goodness is but too often an idleness or
powerlessness of will.
238.—It is not so dangerous
to do wrong to most men, as to do them too much good.
239.—Nothing flatters our
pride so much as the confidence of the great, because we regard
it as the result of our worth, without remembering that
generally 'tis but vanity, or the inability to keep a secret.
240.—We may say of
conformity as distinguished from beauty, that it is a symmetry
which knows no rules, and a secret harmony of features both one
with each other and with the colour and appearance of the
person.
241.—Flirtation is at the
bottom of woman's nature, although all do not practise it, some
being restrained by fear, others by sense.
["By nature woman is a
flirt, but her flirting changes both in the mode and object
according to her opinions."— Rousseau, Emile.]
242.—We often bore others
when we think we cannot possibly bore them.
243.—Few things are
impossible in themselves; application to make them succeed fails
us more often than the means.
244.—Sovereign ability
consists in knowing the value of things.
245.—There is great ability
in knowing how to conceal one's ability.
["You have accomplished
a great stroke in diplomacy when you have made others think that
you have only very average abilities."—La Bruyère.]
246.—What seems generosity
is often disguised ambition, that despises small to run after
greater interest.
247.—The fidelity of most
men is merely an invention of self-love to win confidence; a
method to place us above others and to render us depositaries of
the most important matters.
248.—Magnanimity despises
all, to win all.
249.—There is no less
eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the air of a speaker
than in his choice of words.
250.—True eloquence
consists in saying all that should be, not all that could be
said.
251.—There are people whose
faults become them, others whose very virtues disgrace them.
["There are faults which
do him honour, and virtues that disgrace him."—Junius, Letter
Of 28th May, 1770.]
252.—It is as common to
change one's tastes, as it is uncommon to change one's
inclinations.
253.—Interest sets at work
all sorts of virtues and vices.
254.—Humility is often a
feigned submission which we employ to supplant others. It is one
of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride
transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well
disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself
under the form of humility.
["Grave and plausible
enough to be thought fit for business."—Junius, Letter To The
Duke Of Grafton.
"He saw a cottage with a
double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And the devil was
pleased, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility."
Southey, Devil's Walk.]
{There are numerous
corrections necessary for this quotation; I will keep the
original above so you can compare the correct passages:
"He passed a cottage
with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And he owned
with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes
humility." —Southey, Devil's Walk, Stanza 8.
"And the devil did grin,
for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility." —Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts}
255.—All feelings have
their peculiar tone of voice, gestures and looks, and this
harmony, as it is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, makes
people agreeable or disagreeable.
256.—In all professions we
affect a part and an appearance to seem what we wish to be. Thus
the world is merely composed of actors.
["All the world's a
stage, and all the men and women merely players."—Shakespeare,
As You Like It{, Act II, Scene VII, Jaques}.
"Life is no more than a
dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his
consistency to the last."—Junius.]
257.—Gravity is a
mysterious carriage of the body invented to conceal the want of
mind.
["Gravity is the very
essence of imposture."—Shaftesbury, Characteristics, p.
11, vol. I. "The very essence of gravity is design, and
consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the
world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth, and
that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse,
than what a French wit had long ago defined it—a mysterious
carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind."—Sterne,
Tristram Shandy, vol. I., chap. ii.]
258.—Good taste arises more
from judgment than wit.
259.—The pleasure of love
is in loving, we are happier in the passion we feel than in that
we inspire.
260.—Civility is but a
desire to receive civility, and to be esteemed polite.
261.—The usual education of
young people is to inspire them with a second self-love.
262.—There is no passion
wherein self-love reigns so powerfully as in love, and one is
always more ready to sacrifice the peace of the loved one than
his own.
263.—What we call
liberality is often but the vanity of giving, which we like more
than that we give away.
264.—Pity is often a
reflection of our own evils in the ills of others. It is a
delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall. We
help others that on like occasions we may be helped ourselves,
and these services which we render, are in reality benefits we
confer on ourselves by anticipation.
["Grief for the
calamity of another is pity, and ariseth from the imagination
that a like calamity may befal himself{;} and therefore is
called compassion."—Hobbes' Leviathan{, (1651), Part I,
Chapter VI}.]
265.—A narrow mind begets
obstinacy, and we do not easily believe what we cannot see.
["Stiff in opinion,
always in the wrong." Dryden, Absalom And Achitophel{,
line 547}.]
266.—We deceive ourselves
if we believe that there are violent passions like ambition and
love that can triumph over others. Idleness, languishing as she
is, does not often fail in being mistress; she usurps authority
over all the plans and actions of life; imperceptibly consuming
and destroying both passions and virtues.
267.—A quickness in
believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the
effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we
do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.
268.—We credit judges with
the meanest motives, and yet we desire our reputation and fame
should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all, either from
their jealousy or pre-occupation or want of intelligence,
opposed to us—and yet 'tis only to make these men decide in our
favour that we peril in so many ways both our peace and our
life.
269.—No man is clever
enough to know all the evil he does.
270.—One honour won is a
surety for more.
271.—Youth is a continual
intoxication; it is the fever of reason.
["The best of life is
but intoxication."—{Lord Byron, } Don Juan{, Canto II, stanza
179}. In the 1st Edition, 1665, the maxim finishes with—"it is
the fever of health, the folly of reason."]
272.—Nothing should so
humiliate men who have deserved great praise, as the care they
have taken to acquire it by the smallest means.
273.—There are persons of
whom the world approves who have no merit beyond the vices they
use in the affairs of life.
274.—The beauty of novelty
is to love as the flower to the fruit; it lends a lustre which
is easily lost, but which never returns.
275.—Natural goodness,
which boasts of being so apparent, is often smothered by the
least interest.
276.—Absence extinguishes
small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow
out a candle, and blow in a fire.
277.—Women often think they
love when they do not love. The business of a love affair, the
emotion of mind that sentiment induces, the natural bias towards
the pleasure of being loved, the difficulty of refusing,
persuades them that they have real passion when they have but
flirtation.
["And if in fact she
takes a {"}Grande Passion{"}, It is a very serious thing
indeed: Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion, Coquetry,
or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new
sash on. Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the {Tenth}
instance will be a tornado, For there's no saying what they will
or may do." {—Lord Byron, }Don Juan, canto xii. stanza
77.]
278.—What makes us so often
discontented with those who transact business for us is that
they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the
interest of the business, because they wish to have the honour
of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.
279.—When we exaggerate the
tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from
gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit.
280.—The praise we give to
new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those
who are established.
281.—Pride, which inspires,
often serves to moderate envy.
282.—Some disguised lies so
resemble truth, that we should judge badly were we not deceived.
283.—Sometimes there is not
less ability in knowing how to use than in giving good advice.
284.—There are wicked
people who would be much less dangerous if they were wholly
without goodness.
285.—Magnanimity is
sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is
the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.
286.—It is impossible to
love a second time those whom we have really ceased to love.
287.—Fertility of mind does
not furnish us with so many resources on the same matter, as the
lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each thing our
imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning
which is the best.
288.—There are matters and
maladies which at certain times remedies only serve to make
worse; true skill consists in knowing when it is dangerous to
use them.
289.—Affected simplicity is
refined imposture.
[Domitianus
simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine studium litterarum et amorem
carminum simulabat quo velaret animum et fratris aemulationi
subduceretur.—Tacitus, Ann. iv.]
290.—There are as many
errors of temper as of mind.
291.—Man's merit, like the
crops, has its season.
292.—One may say of temper
as of many buildings; it has divers aspects, some agreeable,
others disagreeable.
293.—Moderation cannot
claim the merit of opposing and overcoming Ambition: they are
never found together. Moderation is the languor and sloth of the
soul, Ambition its activity and heat.
294.—We always like those
who admire us, we do not always like those whom we admire.
295.—It is well that we
know not all our wishes.
296.—It is difficult to
love those we do not esteem, but it is no less so to love those
whom we esteem much more than ourselves.
297.—Bodily temperaments
have a common course and rule which imperceptibly affect our
will. They advance in combination, and successively exercise a
secret empire over us, so that, without our perceiving it, they
become a great part of all our actions.
298.—The gratitude of most
men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.
[Hence the common
proverb "Gratitude is merely a lively sense of favors to come."]
299.—Almost all the world
takes pleasure in paying small debts; many people show gratitude
for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not show
ingratitude for great favours.
300.—There are follies as
catching as infections.
301.—Many people despise,
but few know how to bestow wealth.
302.—Only in things of
small value we usually are bold enough not to trust to
appearances.
303.—Whatever good quality
may be imputed to us, we ourselves find nothing new in it.
304.—We may forgive those
who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
305.—Interest which is
accused of all our misdeeds often should be praised for our good
deeds.
306.—We find very few
ungrateful people when we are able to confer favours.
307.—It is as proper to be
boastful alone as it is ridiculous to be so in company.
308.—Moderation is made a
virtue to limit the ambition of the great; to console ordinary
people for their small fortune and equally small ability.
309.—There are persons
fated to be fools, who commit follies not only by choice, but
who are forced by fortune to do so.
310.—Sometimes there are
accidents in our life the skilful extrication from which demands
a little folly.
311.—If there be men whose
folly has never appeared, it is because it has never been
closely looked for.
312.—Lovers are never tired
of each other,—they always speak of themselves.
313.—How is it that our
memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that
happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we
have told it to the same person?
["Old men who yet retain
the memory of things past, and forget how often they have told
them, are most tedious companions."—Montaigne, {Essays,
Book I, Chapter IX}.]
314.—The extreme delight we
take in talking of ourselves should warn us that it is not
shared by those who listen.
315.—What commonly hinders
us from showing the recesses of our heart to our friends, is not
the distrust we have of them, but that we have of ourselves.
316.—Weak persons cannot be
sincere.
317.—'Tis a small
misfortune to oblige an ungrateful man; but it is unbearable to
be obliged by a scoundrel.
318.—We may find means to
cure a fool of his folly, but there are none to set straight a
cross-grained spirit.
319.—If we take the liberty
to dwell on their faults we cannot long preserve the feelings we
should hold towards our friends and benefactors.
320.—To praise princes for
virtues they do not possess is but to reproach them with
impunity.
["Praise undeserved is
satire in disguise," quoted by Pope from a poem which has not
survived, "The Garland," by Mr. Broadhurst. "In some cases
exaggerated or inappropriate praise becomes the most severe
satire."— Scott, Woodstock.]
321.—We are nearer loving
those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire.
322.—Those only are
despicable who fear to be despised.
323.—Our wisdom is no less
at the mercy of Fortune than our goods.
324.—There is more
self-love than love in jealousy.
325.—We often comfort
ourselves by the weakness of evils, for which reason has not the
strength to console us.
326.—Ridicule dishonours
more than dishonour itself.
["No," says a
commentator, "Ridicule may do harm, but it cannot dishonour; it
is vice which confers dishonour."]
327.—We own to small faults
to persuade others that we have not great ones.
328.—Envy is more
irreconcilable than hatred.
329.—We believe, sometimes,
that we hate flattery —we only dislike the method.
["{But} when I tell him
he hates flatter{ers}, He says he does, being then most
flattered." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar {,Act II, Scene I,
Decius}.]
330.—We pardon in the
degree that we love.
331.—It is more difficult
to be faithful to a mistress when one is happy, than when we are
ill-treated by her.
[Si qua volet regnare
diu contemnat amantem.—Ovid, Amores, ii. 19.]
332.—Women do not know all
their powers of flirtation.
333.—Women cannot be
completely severe unless they hate.
334.—Women can less easily
resign flirtations than love.
335.—In love deceit almost
always goes further than mistrust.
336.—There is a kind of
love, the excess of which forbids jealousy.
337.—There are certain good
qualities as there are senses, and those who want them can
neither perceive nor understand them.
338.—When our hatred is too
bitter it places us below those whom we hate.
339.—We only appreciate our
good or evil in proportion to our self-love.
340.—The wit of most women
rather strengthens their folly than their reason.
["Women have an
entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning
and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it, and who
reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty hours
together."—Lord Chesterfield, Letter 129.]
341.—The heat of youth is
not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age.
342.—The accent of our
native country dwells in the heart and mind as well as on the
tongue.
343.—To be a great man one
should know how to profit by every phase of fortune.
344.—Most men, like plants,
possess hidden qualities which chance discovers.
345.—Opportunity makes us
known to others, but more to ourselves.
346.—If a woman's temper is
beyond control there can be no control of the mind or heart.
347.—We hardly find any
persons of good sense, save those who agree with us.
["That was excellently
observed, say I, when I read an author when his opinion agrees
with mine."—Swift, Thoughts On Various Subjects.]
348.—When one loves one
doubts even what one most believes.
349.—The greatest miracle
of love is to eradicate flirtation.
350.—Why we hate with so
much bitterness those who deceive us is because they think
themselves more clever than we are.
["I could pardon all his
(Louis XI.'s) deceit, but I cannot forgive his supposing me
capable of the gross folly of being duped by his
professions."—Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward.]
351.—We have much trouble
to break with one, when we no longer are in love.
352.—We almost always are
bored with persons with whom we should not be bored.
353.—A gentleman may love
like a lunatic, but not like a beast.
354.—There are certain
defects which well mounted glitter like virtue itself.
355.—Sometimes we lose
friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and
others for whom our grief is greater than our regret.
356.—Usually we only praise
heartily those who admire us.
357.—Little minds are too
much wounded by little things; great minds see all and are not
even hurt.
358.—Humility is the true
proof of Christian virtues; without it we retain all our faults,
and they are only covered by pride to hide them from others, and
often from ourselves.
359.—Infidelities should
extinguish love, and we ought not to be jealous when we have
cause to be so. No persons escape causing jealousy who are
worthy of exciting it.
360.—We are more humiliated
by the least infidelity towards us, than by our greatest towards
others.
361.—Jealousy is always
born with love, but does not always die with it.
362.—Most women do not
grieve so much for the death of their lovers for love's-sake, as
to show they were worthy of being beloved.
363.—The evils we do to
others give us less pain than those we do to ourselves.
364.—We well know that it
is bad taste to talk of our wives; but we do not so well know
that it is the same to speak of ourselves.
365.—There are virtues
which degenerate into vices when they arise from Nature, and
others which when acquired are never perfect. For example,
reason must teach us to manage our estate and our confidence,
while Nature should have given us goodness and valour.
366.—However we distrust
the sincerity of those whom we talk with, we always believe them
more sincere with us than with others.
367.—There are few virtuous
women who are not tired of their part.
["Every woman is at
heart a rake."—Pope. Moral Essays, ii.]
368.—The greater number of
good women are like concealed treasures, safe as no one has
searched for them.
369.—The violences we put
upon ourselves to escape love are often more cruel than the
cruelty of those we love.
370.—There are not many
cowards who know the whole of their fear.
371.—It is generally the
fault of the loved one not to perceive when love ceases.
372.—Most young people
think they are natural when they are only boorish and rude.
373.—Some tears after
having deceived others deceive ourselves.
374.—If we think we love a
woman for love of herself we are greatly deceived.
375.—Ordinary men commonly
condemn what is beyond them.
376.—Envy is destroyed by
true friendship, flirtation by true love.
377.—The greatest mistake
of penetration is not to have fallen short, but to have gone too
far.
378.—We may bestow advice,
but we cannot inspire the conduct.
379.—As our merit declines
so also does our taste.
380.—Fortune makes visible
our virtues or our vices, as light does objects.
381.—The struggle we
undergo to remain faithful to one we love is little better than
infidelity.
382.—Our actions are like
the rhymed ends of blank verses (Bouts-Rimés) where to
each one puts what construction he pleases.
[The Bouts-Rimés
was a literary game popular in the 17th and 18th centuries—the
rhymed words at the end of a line being given for others to fill
up. Thus Horace Walpole being given, "brook, why, crook, I,"
returned the burlesque verse— "I sits with my toes in a Brook,
And if any one axes me Why? I gies 'em a rap with my
Crook, 'Tis constancy makes me, ses I."]
383.—The desire of talking
about ourselves, and of putting our faults in the light we wish
them to be seen, forms a great part of our sincerity.
384.—We should only be
astonished at still being able to be astonished.
385.—It is equally as
difficult to be contented when one has too much or too little
love.
386.—No people are more
often wrong than those who will not allow themselves to be
wrong.
387.—A fool has not stuff
in him to be good.
388.—If vanity does not
overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.
389.—What makes the vanity
of others unsupportable is that it wounds our own.
390.—We give up more easily
our interest than our taste.
391.—Fortune appears so
blind to none as to those to whom she has done no good.
392.—We should manage
fortune like our health, enjoy it when it is good, be patient
when it is bad, and never resort to strong remedies but in an
extremity.
393.—Awkwardness sometimes
disappears in the camp, never in the court.
394.—A man is often more
clever than one other, but not than all others.
["Singuli decipere ac
decipi possunt, nemo omnes, omnes neminem fefellerunt."—Pliny{
the Younger, Panegyricus, LXII}.]
395.—We are often less
unhappy at being deceived by one we loved, than on being
deceived.
396.—We keep our first
lover for a long time—if we do not get a second.
397.—We have not the
courage to say generally that we have no faults, and that our
enemies have no good qualities; but in fact we are not far from
believing so.
398.—Of all our faults that
which we most readily admit is idleness: we believe that it
makes all virtues ineffectual, and that without utterly
destroying, it at least suspends their operation.
399.—There is a kind of
greatness which does not depend upon fortune: it is a certain
manner what distinguishes us, and which seems to destine us for
great things; it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves;
it is by this quality that we gain the deference of other men,
and it is this which commonly raises us more above them, than
birth, rank, or even merit itself.
400.—There may be talent
without position, but there is no position without some kind of
talent.
401.—Rank is to merit what
dress is to a pretty woman.
402.—What we find the least
of in flirtation is love.
403.—Fortune sometimes uses
our faults to exalt us, and there are tiresome people whose
deserts would be ill rewarded if we did not desire to purchase
their absence.
404.—It appears that nature
has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities
unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of
bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true
and more perfect than art could possibly do.
405.—We reach quite
inexperienced the different stages of life, and often, in spite
of the number of our years, we lack experience.
["To most men experience
is like the stern lights of a ship which illumine only the track
it has passed."— Coleridge.]
406.—Flirts make it a point
of honour to be jealous of their lovers, to conceal their envy
of other women.
407.—It may well be that
those who have trapped us by their tricks do not seem to us so
foolish as we seem to ourselves when trapped by the tricks of
others.
408.—The most dangerous
folly of old persons who have been loveable is to forget that
they are no longer so.
["Every woman who is not
absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome. The suspicion of age no
woman, let her be ever so old, forgives."—Lord Chesterfield,
Letter 129.]
409.—We should often be
ashamed of our very best actions if the world only saw the
motives which caused them.
410.—The greatest effort of
friendship is not to show our faults to a friend, but to show
him his own.
4ll.—We have few faults
which are not far more excusable than the means we adopt to hide
them.
412.—Whatever disgrace we
may have deserved, it is almost always in our power to
re-establish our character.
["This is hardly a
period at which the most irregular character may not be
redeemed. The mistakes of one sin find a retreat in patriotism,
those of the other in devotion." —Junius, Letter To The King.]
413.—A man cannot please
long who has only one kind of wit.
[According to Segrais
this maxim was a hit at Racine and Boileau, who, despising
ordinary conversation, talked incessantly of literature; but
there is some doubt as to Segrais' statement.—Aimé Martin.]
414.—Idiots and lunatics
see only their own wit.
415.—Wit sometimes
enables us to act rudely with impunity.
416.—The vivacity which
increases in old age is not far removed from folly.
["How ill {white} hairs
become {a} fool and jester."— {Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part
II, Act. V, Scene V, King}.
"Can age itself forget
that you are now in the last act of life? Can grey hairs make
folly venerable, and is there no period to be reserved for
meditation or retirement."— Junius, To The Duke Of Bedford,
19th Sept. 1769.]
417.—In love the quickest
is always the best cure.
418.—Young women who do not
want to appear flirts, and old men who do not want to appear
ridiculous, should not talk of love as a matter wherein they can
have any interest.
419.—We may seem great in a
post beneath our capacity, but we oftener seem little in a post
above it.
420.—We often believe we
have constancy in misfortune when we have nothing but
debasement, and we suffer misfortunes without regarding them as
cowards who let themselves be killed from fear of defending
themselves.
421.—Conceit causes more
conversation than wit.
422.—All passions make us
commit some faults, love alone makes us ridiculous.
["In love we all are
fools alike."—Gay{, The Beggar's Opera, (1728), Act III,
Scene I, Lucy}.]
423.—Few know how to be
old.
424.—We often credit
ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak
we boast of our obstinacy.
425.—Penetration has a
spice of divination in it which tickles our vanity more than any
other quality of the mind.
426.—The charm of novelty
and old custom, however opposite to each other, equally blind us
to the faults of our friends.
["Two things the most
opposite blind us equally, custom and novelty."-La Bruyère,
Des Judgements.]
427.—Most friends sicken us
of friendship, most devotees of devotion.
428.—We easily forgive in
our friends those faults we do not perceive.
429.—Women who love, pardon
more readily great indiscretions than little infidelities.
430.—In the old age of love
as in life we still survive for the evils, though no longer for
the pleasures.
["The youth of
friendship is better than its old age." —Hazlitt's
Characteristics, 229.]
431.—Nothing prevents our
being unaffected so much as our desire to seem so.
432.—To praise good actions
heartily is in some measure to take part in them.
433.—The most certain sign
of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.
["Nemo alienae virtuti
invidet qui satis confidet suae." —Cicero In Marc Ant.]
434.—When our friends have
deceived us we owe them but indifference to the tokens of their
friendship, yet for their misfortunes we always owe them pity.
435.—Luck and temper rule
the world.
436.—It is far easier to
know men than to know man.
437.—We should not judge of
a man's merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of
them.
438.—There is a certain
lively gratitude which not only releases us from benefits
received, but which also, by making a return to our friends as
payment, renders them indebted to us.
["And understood not
that a grateful mind, By owing owes not, but is at once Indebted
and discharged." Milton. Paradise Lost.]
439.—We should earnestly
desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired.
440.—The cause why the
majority of women are so little given to friendship is, that it
is insipid after having felt love.
["Those who have
experienced a great passion neglect friendship, and those who
have united themselves to friendship have nought to do with
love."—La Bruyère. Du Coeur.]
441.—As in friendship so in
love, we are often happier from ignorance than from knowledge.
442.—We try to make a
virtue of vices we are loth to correct.
443.—The most violent
passions give some respite, but vanity always disturbs us.
444.—Old fools are more
foolish than young fools.
["Malvolio.
Infirmity{,} that decays the wise{,} doth eve{r} make the better
fool. Clown. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity{,} for
the better increasing of your folly."—Shakespeare. Twelfth
Night{, Act I, Scene V}.]
445.—Weakness is more
hostile to virtue than vice.
446.—What makes the grief
of shame and jealousy so acute is that vanity cannot aid us in
enduring them.
447.—Propriety is the least
of all laws, but the most obeyed.
[Honour has its supreme
laws, to which education is bound to conform....Those things
which honour forbids are more rigorously forbidden when the laws
do not concur in the prohibition, and those it commands are more
strongly insisted upon when they happen not to be commanded by
law.—Montesquieu, {The Spirit Of Laws, }b. 4, c. ii.]
448.—A well-trained mind
has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an
ill-trained mind.
449.—When fortune surprises
us by giving us some great office without having gradually led
us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well
nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill
it.
450.—Our pride is often
increased by what we retrench from our other faults.
["The loss of sensual
pleasures was supplied and compensated by spiritual
pride."—Gibbon. Decline And Fall, chap. xv.]
451.—No fools so wearisome
as those who have some wit.
452.—No one believes that
in every respect he is behind the man he considers the ablest in
the world.
453.—In great matters we
should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilise
those that offer themselves.
[Yet Lord Bacon says "A
wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."—Essays,
{(1625), "Of Ceremonies and Respects"}]
454.—There are few
occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the
good on condition that no ill was said of us.
455.—However disposed the
world may be to judge wrongly, it far oftener favours false
merit than does justice to true.
456.—Sometimes we meet a
fool with wit, never one with discretion.
457.—We should gain more by
letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we
are not.
458.—Our enemies come
nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in
our opinion of ourselves.
459.—There are many
remedies to cure love, yet none are infallible.
460.—It would be well for
us if we knew all our passions make us do.
461.—Age is a tyrant who
forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of youth.
462.—The same pride which
makes us blame faults from which we believe ourselves free
causes us to despise the good qualities we have not.
463.—There is often more
pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies' miseries; it
is to show how superior we are to them, that we bestow on them
the sign of our compassion.
464.—There exists an excess
of good and evil which surpasses our comprehension.
465.—Innocence is most
fortunate if it finds the same protection as crime.
466.—Of all the violent
passions the one that becomes a woman best is love.
467.—Vanity makes us sin
more against our taste than reason.
468.—Some bad qualities
form great talents.
469.—We never desire
earnestly what we desire in reason.
470.—All our qualities are
uncertain and doubtful, both the good as well as the bad, and
nearly all are creatures of opportunities.
471.—In their first passion
women love their lovers, in all the others they love love.
["In her first passion
woman loves her lover, In all her others what she loves is
love." {—Lord Byron, }Don Juan, Canto iii., stanza 3. "We truly
love once, the first time; the subsequent passions are more or
less involuntary." La Bruyère: Du Coeur.]
472.—Pride as the other
passions has its follies. We are ashamed to own we are jealous,
and yet we plume ourselves in having been and being able to be
so.
473.—However rare true love
is, true friendship is rarer.
["It is more common to
see perfect love than real friendship."—La Bruyère. Du Coeur.]
474.—There are few women
whose charm survives their beauty.
475.—The desire to be
pitied or to be admired often forms the greater part of our
confidence.
476.—Our envy always lasts
longer than the happiness of those we envy.
477.—The same firmness that
enables us to resist love enables us to make our resistance
durable and lasting. So weak persons who are always excited by
passions are seldom really possessed of any.
478.—Fancy does not enable
us to invent so many different contradictions as there are by
nature in every heart.
479.—It is only people who
possess firmness who can possess true gentleness. In those who
appear gentle it is generally only weakness, which is readily
converted into harshness.
480.—Timidity is a fault
which is dangerous to blame in those we desire to cure of it.
481.—Nothing is rarer than
true good nature, those who think they have it are generally
only pliant or weak.
482.—The mind attaches
itself by idleness and habit to whatever is easy or pleasant.
This habit always places bounds to our knowledge, and no one has
ever yet taken the pains to enlarge and expand his mind to the
full extent of its capacities.
483.—Usually we are more
satirical from vanity than malice.
484.—When the heart is
still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take
up a new one than when wholly cured.
485.—Those who have had
great passions often find all their lives made miserable in
being cured of them.
486.—More persons exist
without self-love than without envy.
["I do not believe that
there is a human creature in his senses arrived at maturity,
that at some time or other has not been carried away by this
passion (envy) in good earnest, and yet I never met with any who
dared own he was guilty of it, but in jest."—Mandeville:
Fable Of The Bees; Remark N.]
487.—We have more idleness
in the mind than in the body.
488.—The calm or
disturbance of our mind does not depend so much on what we
regard as the more important things of life, as in a judicious
or injudicious arrangement of the little things of daily
occurrence.
489.—However wicked men may
be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and
when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe
her false or attribute crimes to her.
490.—We often go from love
to ambition, but we never return from ambition to love.
["Men commence by love,
finish by ambition, and do not find a quieter seat while they
remain there."—La Bruyère: Du Coeur.]
491.—Extreme avarice is
nearly always mistaken, there is no passion which is oftener
further away from its mark, nor upon which the present has so
much power to the prejudice of the future.
492.—Avarice often produces
opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who
sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations,
others mistake great future advantages for small present
interests.
[Aimé Martin
says, "The author here confuses greediness, the desire and
avarice—passions which probably have a common origin, but
produce different results. The greedy man is nearly always
desirous to possess, and often foregoes great future advantages
for small present interests. The avaricious man, on the other
hand, mistakes present advantages for the great expectations of
the future. Both desire to possess and enjoy. But the miser
possesses and enjoys nothing but the pleasure of possessing; he
risks nothing, gives nothing, hopes nothing, his life is centred
in his strong box, beyond that he has no want."]
493.—It appears that men do
not find they have enough faults, as they increase the number by
certain peculiar qualities that they affect to assume, and which
they cultivate with so great assiduity that at length they
become natural faults, which they can no longer correct.
494.—What makes us see that
men know their faults better than we imagine, is that they are
never wrong when they speak of their conduct; the same self-love
that usually blinds them enlightens them, and gives them such
true views as to make them suppress or disguise the smallest
thing that might be censured.
495.—Young men entering
life should be either shy or bold; a solemn and sedate manner
usually degenerates into impertinence.
496.—Quarrels would not
last long if the fault was only on one side.
497.—It is valueless to a
woman to be young unless pretty, or to be pretty unless young.
498.—Some persons are so
frivolous and fickle that they are as far removed from real
defects as from substantial qualities.
499.—We do not usually
reckon a woman's first flirtation until she has had a second.
500.—Some people are so
self-occupied that when in love they find a mode by which to be
engrossed with the passion without being so with the person they
love.
501.—Love, though so very
agreeable, pleases more by its ways than by itself.
502.—A little wit with good
sense bores less in the long run than much wit with ill nature.
503.—Jealousy is the worst
of all evils, yet the one that is least pitied by those who
cause it.
504.—Thus having treated of
the hollowness of so many apparent virtues, it is but just to
say something on the hollowness of the contempt for death. I
allude to that contempt of death which the heathen boasted they
derived from their unaided understanding, without the hope of a
future state. There is a difference between meeting death with
courage and despising it. The first is common enough, the last I
think always feigned. Yet everything that could be has been
written to persuade us that death is no evil, and the weakest of
men, equally with the bravest, have given many noble examples on
which to found such an opinion, still I do not think that any
man of good sense has ever yet believed in it. And the pains we
take to persuade others as well as ourselves amply show that the
task is far from easy. For many reasons we may be disgusted with
life, but for none may we despise it. Not even those who commit
suicide regard it as a light matter, and are as much alarmed and
startled as the rest of the world if death meets them in a
different way than the one they have selected. The difference we
observe in the courage of so great a number of brave men, is
from meeting death in a way different from what they imagined,
when it shows itself nearer at one time than at another. Thus it
ultimately happens that having despised death when they were
ignorant of it, they dread it when they become acquainted with
it. If we could avoid seeing it with all its surroundings, we
might perhaps believe that it was not the greatest of evils. The
wisest and bravest are those who take the best means to avoid
reflecting on it, as every man who sees it in its real light
regards it as dreadful. The necessity of dying created all the
constancy of philosophers. They thought it but right to go with
a good grace when they could not avoid going, and being unable
to prolong their lives indefinitely, nothing remained but to
build an immortal reputation, and to save from the general wreck
all that could be saved. To put a good face upon it, let it
suffice, not to say all that we think to ourselves, but rely
more on our nature than on our fallible reason, which might make
us think we could approach death with indifference. The glory of
dying with courage, the hope of being regretted, the desire to
leave behind us a good reputation, the assurance of being
enfranchised from the miseries of life and being no longer
dependent on the wiles of fortune, are resources which should
not be passed over. But we must not regard them as infallible.
They should affect us in the same proportion as a single shelter
affects those who in war storm a fortress. At a distance they
think it may afford cover, but when near they find it only a
feeble protection. It is only deceiving ourselves to imagine
that death, when near, will seem the same as at a distance, or
that our feelings, which are merely weaknesses, are naturally so
strong that they will not suffer in an attack of the rudest of
trials. It is equally as absurd to try the effect of self-esteem
and to think it will enable us to count as naught what will of
necessity destroy it. And the mind in which we trust to find so
many resources will be far too weak in the struggle to persuade
us in the way we wish. For it is this which betrays us so
frequently, and which, instead of filling us with contempt of
death, serves but to show us all that is frightful and fearful.
The most it can do for us is to persuade us to avert our gaze
and fix it on other objects. Cato and Brutus each selected noble
ones. A lackey sometime ago contented himself by dancing on the
scaffold when he was about to be broken on the wheel. So however
diverse the motives they but realize the same result. For the
rest it is a fact that whatever difference there may be between
the peer and the peasant, we have constantly seen both the one
and the other meet death with the same composure. Still there is
always this difference, that the contempt the peer shows for
death is but the love of fame which hides death from his sight;
in the peasant it is but the result of his limited vision that
hides from him the extent of the evil, end leaves him free to
reflect on other things.
THE FIRST SUPPLEMENT
[The following reflections
are extracted from the first two editions of La Rochefoucauld,
having been suppressed by the author in succeeding issues.]
I.—Self-love
is the love of self, and of all things for self. It
makes men self-worshippers, and if fortune permits them, causes them
to tyrannize over others; it is never quiet when out of itself, and
only rests upon other subjects as a bee upon flowers, to extract
from them its proper food. Nothing is so headstrong as its desires,
nothing so well concealed as its designs, nothing so skilful as its
management; its suppleness is beyond description; its changes
surpass those of the metamorphoses, its refinements those of
chemistry. We can neither plumb the depths nor pierce the shades of
its recesses. Therein it is hidden from the most far-seeing eyes,
therein it takes a thousand imperceptible folds. There it is often
to itself invisible; it there conceives, there nourishes and rears,
without being aware of it, numberless loves and hatreds, some so
monstrous that when they are brought to light it disowns them, and
cannot resolve to avow them. In the night which covers it are born
the ridiculous persuasions it has of itself, thence come its errors,
its ignorance, its silly mistakes; thence it is led to believe that
its passions which sleep are dead, and to think that it has lost all
appetite for that of which it is sated. But this thick darkness
which conceals it from itself does not hinder it from seeing that
perfectly which is out of itself; and in this it resembles our eyes
which behold all, and yet cannot set their own forms. In fact, in
great concerns and important matters when the violence of its
desires summons all its attention, it sees, feels, hears, imagines,
suspects, penetrates, divines all: so that we might think that each
of its passions had a magic power proper to it. Nothing is so close
and strong as its attachments, which, in sight of the extreme
misfortunes which threaten it, it vainly attempts to break. Yet
sometimes it effects that without trouble and quickly, which it
failed to do with its whole power and in the course of years, whence
we may fairly conclude that it is by itself that its desires are
inflamed, rather than by the beauty and merit of its objects, that
its own taste embellishes and heightens them; that it is itself the
game it pursues, and that it follows eagerly when it runs after that
upon which itself is eager. It is made up of contraries. It is
imperious and obedient, sincere and false, piteous and cruel, timid
and bold. It has different desires according to the diversity of
temperaments, which turn and fix it sometimes upon riches, sometimes
on pleasures. It changes according to our age, our fortunes, and our
hopes; it is quite indifferent whether it has many or one, because
it can split itself into many portions, and unite in one as it
pleases. It is inconstant, and besides the changes which arise from
strange causes it has an infinity born of itself, and of its own
substance. It is inconstant through inconstancy, of lightness, love,
novelty, lassitude and distaste. It is capricious, and one sees it
sometimes work with intense eagerness and with incredible labour to
obtain things of little use to it which are even hurtful, but which
it pursues because it wishes for them. It is silly, and often throws
its whole application on the utmost frivolities. It finds all its
pleasure in the dullest matters, and places its pride in the most
contemptible. It is seen in all states of life, and in all
conditions; it lives everywhere and upon everything; it subsists on
nothing; it accommodates itself either to things or to the want of
them; it goes over to those who are at war with it, enters into
their designs, and, this is wonderful, it, with them, hates even
itself; it conspires for its own loss, it works towards its own
ruin—in fact, caring only to exist, and providing that it may be,
it will be its own enemy! We must therefore not be surprised if it
is sometimes united to the rudest austerity, and if it enters so
boldly into partnership to destroy her, because when it is rooted
out in one place it re-establishes itself in another. When it
fancies that it abandons its pleasure it merely changes or suspends
its enjoyment. When even it is conquered in its full flight, we find
that it triumphs in its own defeat. Here then is the picture of
self-love whereof the whole of our life is but one long agitation.
The sea is its living image; and in the flux and reflux of its
continuous waves there is a faithful expression of the stormy
succession of its thoughts and of its eternal motion. (Edition of
1665, No. 1.)
II.—Passions
are only the different degrees of the heat or coldness of the blood.
(1665, No. 13.)
III.—Moderation
in good fortune is but apprehension of the shame which follows upon
haughtiness, or a fear of losing what we have. (1665, No. 18.)
IV.—Moderation
is like temperance in eating; we could eat more but we fear to make
ourselves ill. (1665, No. 21.)
V.—Everybody
finds that to abuse in another which he finds worthy of abuse in
himself. (1665, No. 33.)
VI.—Pride,
as if tired of its artifices and its different metamorphoses, after
having solely filled the divers parts of the comedy of life,
exhibits itself with its natural face, and is discovered by
haughtiness; so much so that we may truly say that haughtiness is
but the flash and open declaration of pride. (1665, No. 37.)
VII.—One
kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.
(1665, No. 53.)
VIII.—When
we do not find peace of mind (REPOS) in ourselves it is useless to
seek it elsewhere. (1665, No. 53.)
IX.—One
should be able to answer for one's fortune, so as to be able to
answer for what we shall do. (1665, No. 70.)
X.—Love
is to the soul of him who loves, what the soul is to the body which
it animates. (1665, No. 77.)
XI.—As
one is never at liberty to love or to cease from loving, the lover
cannot with justice complain of the inconstancy of his mistress, nor
she of the fickleness of her lover. (1665, No. 81.)
XII.—Justice
in those judges who are moderate is but a love of their place.
(1665, No. 89.)
XIII.—When
we are tired of loving we are quite content if our mistress should
become faithless, to loose us from our fidelity. (1665, No. 85.)
XIV.—The
first impulse of joy which we feel at the happiness of our friends
arises neither from our natural goodness nor from friendship; it is
the result of self-love, which flatters us with being lucky in our
own turn, or in reaping something from the good fortune of our
friends. (1665, No. 97.)
XV.—In
the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is
not wholly displeasing to us. (1665, No. 99.)
[This gave occasion to
Swift's celebrated "Verses on his own Death." The four first are
quoted opposite the title, then follow these lines:— "This maxim
more than all the rest, Is thought too base for human breast; In all
distresses of our friends, We first consult our private ends; While
nature kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to
please us."
See also Chesterfield's
defence of this in his 129th letter; "they who know the deception
and wickedness of the human heart will not be either romantic or
blind enough to deny what Rochefoucauld and Swift have affirmed as a
general truth."]
XVI.—How
shall we hope that another person will keep our secret if we do not
keep it ourselves. (1665, No. 100.)
XVII.—As
if it was not sufficient that self-love should have the power to
change itself, it has added that of changing other objects, and this
it does in a very astonishing manner; for not only does it so well
disguise them that it is itself deceived, but it even changes the
state and nature of things. Thus, when a female is adverse to us,
and she turns her hate and persecution against us, self-love
pronounces on her actions with all the severity of justice; it
exaggerates the faults till they are enormous, and looks at her good
qualities in so disadvantageous a light that they become more
displeasing than her faults. If however the same female becomes
favourable to us, or certain of our interests reconcile her to us,
our sole self interest gives her back the lustre which our hatred
deprived her of. The bad qualities become effaced, the good ones
appear with a redoubled advantage; we even summon all our indulgence
to justify the war she has made upon us. Now although all passions
prove this truth, that of love exhibits it most clearly; for we may
see a lover moved with rage by the neglect or the infidelity of her
whom he loves, and meditating the utmost vengeance that his passion
can inspire. Nevertheless as soon as the sight of his beloved has
calmed the fury of his movements, his passion holds that beauty
innocent; he only accuses himself, he condemns his condemnations,
and by the miraculous power of selflove, he whitens the blackest
actions of his mistress, and takes from her all crime to lay it on
himself.
{No date or number is given
for this maxim}
XVIII.—There
are none who press so heavily on others as the lazy ones, when they
have satisfied their idleness, and wish to appear industrious.
(1666, No. 91.)
XIX.—The
blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it
seems to nourish and augment it, it deprives us of knowledge of
remedies which can solace our miseries and can cure our faults.
(1665, No. 102.)
XX.—One
has never less reason than when one despairs of finding it in
others. (1665, No. 103.)
XXI.—Philosophers,
and Seneca above all, have not diminished crimes by their precepts;
they have only used them in the building up of pride. (1665, No.
105.)
XXII.—It
is a proof of little friendship not to perceive the growing coolness
of that of our friends. (1666, No. 97.)
XXIII.—The
most wise may be so in indifferent and ordinary matters, but they
are seldom so in their most serious affairs. (1665, No. 132.)
XXIV.—The
most subtle folly grows out of the most subtle wisdom. (1665, No.
134.)
XXV.—Sobriety
is the love of health, or an incapacity to eat much. (1665, No.
135.)
XXVI.—We
never forget things so well as when we are tired of talking of them.
(1665, No. 144.)
XXVII.—The
praise bestowed upon us is at least useful in rooting us in the
practice of virtue. (1665, No. 155.)
XXVIII.—Self-love takes care to
prevent him whom we flatter from being him who most flatters us.
(1665, No. 157.)
XXIX.—Men
only blame vice and praise virtue from interest. (1665, No. 151.)
XXX.—We
make no difference in the kinds of anger, although there is that
which is light and almost innocent, which arises from warmth of
complexion, temperament, and another very criminal, which is, to
speak properly, the fury of pride. (1665, No. 159.)
XXXI.—Great
souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than
the common, but those only who have greater designs. (1665, No.
161.)
XXXII.—Kings
do with men as with pieces of money; they make them bear what value
they will, and one is forced to receive them according to their
currency value, and not at their true worth. (1665, No. 165.)
[See Burns{, For A' That
An A' That}— "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, {The} man's
{the gowd} for a' that." Also Farquhar and other parallel passages
pointed out in Familiar Words.]
XXXIII.—Natural ferocity makes
fewer people cruel than self-love. (1665, No. 174.)
XXXIV.—One
may say of all our virtues as an Italian poet says of the propriety
of women, that it is often merely the art of appearing chaste.
(1665, No. 176.)
XXXV.—There
are crimes which become innocent and even glorious by their
brilliancy,* their number, or their excess; thus it happens that
public robbery is called financial skill, and the unjust capture of
provinces is called a conquest. (1665, No. 192.)
*Some crimes may be
excused by their brilliancy, such as those of Jael, of
Deborah, of Brutus, and of Charlotte Corday—further than
this the maxim is satire.
XXXVI.—One
never finds in man good or evil in excess. (1665, No. 201.)
XXXVII.—Those who are incapable of
committing great crimes do not easily suspect others. (1665, No.
{2}08.)
{The text incorrectly
numbers this maxim as 508. It is 208.}
XXXVIII.—The pomp of funerals
concerns rather the vanity of the living, than the honour of the
dead. (1665, No. 213.)
XXXIX.—Whatever
variety and change appears in the world, we may remark a secret
chain, and a regulated order of all time by Providence, which makes
everything follow in due rank and fall into its destined course.
(1665, No. 225.)
XL.—Intrepidity
should sustain the heart in conspiracies in place of valour which
alone furnishes all the firmness which is necessary for the perils
of war. (1665, No. 231.)
XLI.—Those
who wish to define victory by her birth will be tempted to imitate
the poets, and to call her the Daughter of Heaven, since they cannot
find her origin on earth. Truly she is produced from an infinity of
actions, which instead of wishing to beget her, only look to the
particular interests of their masters, since all those who compose
an army, in aiming at their own rise and glory, produce a good so
great and general. (1665, No. 232.)
XLII.—That
man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage.
(1665, No. 236.)
XLIII.—We
more often place bounds on our gratitude than on our desires and our
hopes. (1665, No. 241.)
XLIV.—Imitation
is always unhappy, for all which is counterfeit displeases by the
very things which charm us when they are original (Naturelles).
(1665, No. 245.)
XLV.—We
do not regret the loss of our friends according to their
merits, but according to OUR wants, and the opinion with which we
believed we had impressed them of our worth. (1665, No. 248.)
XLVI.—It
is very hard to separate the general goodness spread all over the
world from great cleverness. (1665, No. 252.)
XLVII.—For
us to be always good, others should believe that they cannot behave
wickedly to us with impunity. (1665, No. 254.)
XLVIII.—A confidence in being able
to please is often an infallible means of being displeasing. (1665,
No. 256.)
XLIX.—The
confidence we have in ourselves arises in a great measure from that
that we have in others. (1665, No. 258.)
L.—There
is a general revolution which changes the tastes of the mind as well
as the fortunes of the world. (1665, No. 250.)
LI.—Truth
is foundation and the reason of the perfection of beauty, for of
whatever stature a thing may be, it cannot be beautiful and perfect
unless it be truly that she should be, and possess truly all that
she should have (1665, No. 260.)
[Beauty is truth, truth
beauty.{—John Keats, "Ode on a a Grecian Urn," (1820), Stanza 5}]
LII.—There
are fine things which are more brilliant when unfinished than when
finished too much. (1665, No. 262.)
LIII.—Magnanimity
is a noble effort of pride which makes a man master of himself, to
make him master of all things. (1665, No. 271.)
LIV.—Luxury
and too refined a policy in states are a sure presage of their fall,
because all parties looking after their own interest turn away from
the public good. (1665, No. 282.)
LV.—Of
all passions that which is least known to us is idleness; she is the
most ardent and evil of all, although her violence may be
insensible, and the evils she causes concealed; if we consider her
power attentively we shall find that in all encounters she makes
herself mistress of our sentiments, our interests, and our
pleasures; like the (fabled) Remora, she can stop the greatest
vessels, she is a hidden rock, more dangerous in the most important
matters than sudden squalls and the most violent tempests. The
repose of idleness is a magic charm which suddenly suspends the most
ardent pursuits and the most obstinate resolutions. In fact to give
a true notion of this passion we must add that idleness, like a
beatitude of the soul, consoles us for all losses and fills the
vacancy of all our wants. (1665, No. 290.)
LVI.—We
are very fond of reading others' characters, but we do not like to
be read ourselves. (1665, No. 296.)
LVII.—What
a tiresome malady is that which forces one to preserve your health
by a severe regimen. (Ibid, No. 298.)
LVIII.—It
is much easier to take love when one is free, than to get rid of it
after having taken it. (1665, No. 300.)
LIX.—Women
for the most part surrender themselves more from weakness than from
passion. Whence it is that bold and pushing men succeed better than
others, although they are not so loveable. (1665, No. 301.)
LX.—Not
to love is in love, an infallible means of being beloved. (1665, No.
302.)
LXI.—The
sincerity which lovers and mistresses ask that both should know when
they cease to love each other, arises much less from a wish to be
warned of the cessation of love, than from a desire to be assured
that they are beloved although no one denies it. (1665, No. 303.)
LXII.—The
most just comparison of love is that of a fever, and we have no
power over either, as to its violence or its duration. (1665, No.
305.)
LXIII.—The
greatest skill of the least skilful is to know how to submit to the
direction of another. (1665, No. 309.)
LXIV.—We
always fear to see those whom we love when we have been flirting
with others. (16{74}, No. 372.)
LXV.—We
ought to console ourselves for our faults when we have strength
enough to own them. (16{74}, No. 375.)
{The date of the previous
two maxims is incorrectly cited as 1665 in the text. I found this
date immediately suspect because the translators' introduction
states that the 1665 edition only had 316 maxims. In fact, the two
maxims only appeared in the fourth of the first five editions
(1674).}
SECOND SUPPLEMENT.
REFLECTIONS, EXTRACTED FROM
MS. LETTERS IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY.*
*A La
Bibliotheque Du Roi, it is difficult at present (June
1871) to assign a name to the magnificent collection of
books in Paris, the property of the nation.
LXVI.—Interest
is the soul of self-love, in as much as when the body deprived of
its soul is without sight, feeling or knowledge, without thought or
movement, so self-love, riven so to speak from its interest, neither
sees, nor hears, nor smells, nor moves; thus it is that the same man
who will run over land and sea for his own interest becomes suddenly
paralyzed when engaged for that of others; from this arises that
sudden dulness and, as it were, death, with which we afflict those
to whom we speak of our own matters; from this also their sudden
resurrection when in our narrative we relate something concerning
them; from this we find in our conversations and business that a man
becomes dull or bright just as his own interest is near to him or
distant from him. (Letter To Madame De Sablé, Ms., Fol. 211.)
LXVII.—Why
we cry out so much against maxims which lay bare the heart of man,
is because we fear that our own heart shall be laid bare. (Maxim
103, MS., fol. 310.*)
*The reader will
recognise in these extracts portions of the Maxims
previously given, sometimes the author has carefully
polished them; at other times the words are identical. Our
numbers will indicate where they are to be found in the
foregoing collection.
LXVIII.—Hope and fear are
inseparable. (To Madame De Sablé, Ms., Fol. 222, MAX. 168.)
LXIX.—It
is a common thing to hazard life to escape dishonour; but, when this
is done, the actor takes very little pain to make the enterprise
succeed in which he is engaged, and certain it is that they who
hazard their lives to take a city or to conquer a province are
better officers, have more merit, and wider and more useful, views
than they who merely expose themselves to vindicate their honour; it
is very common to find people of the latter class, very rare to find
those of the former. (Letter To M. Esprit, Ms., Fol. 173,
MAX. 219.)
LXX.—The
taste changes, but the will remains the same. (To Madame De
Sablé, Fol. 223, Max. 252.)
LXXI.—The
power which women whom we love have over us is greater than that
which we have over ourselves. (To The Same, Ms., Fol. 211, Max.
259)
LXXII.—That
which makes us believe so easily that others have defects is that we
all so easily believe what we wish. (To The Same, Ms., Fol. 223,
Max. 397.)
LXXIII.—I am perfectly aware that
good sense and fine wit are tedious to every age, but tastes are not
always the same, and what is good at one time will not seem so at
another. This makes me think that few persons know how to be old. (To
The Same, Fol. 202, Max. 423.)
LXXIV.—God
has permitted, to punish man for his original sin, that he should be
so fond of his self-love, that he should be tormented by it in all
the actions of his life. (Ms., Fol. 310, Max. 494.)
LXXV.—And
so far it seems to me the philosophy of a lacquey can go; I believe
that all gaity in that state of life is very doubtful indeed. (To
Madame De Sablé, Fol. 161, Max. 504.)
[In the maxim cited the
author relates how a footman about to be broken on the wheel danced
on the scaffold. He seems to think that in his day the life of such
servants was so miserable that their merriment was very doubtful.]
THIRD SUPPLEMENT
[The fifty following Maxims
are taken from the Sixth Edition of the Pensées De La
Rochefoucauld, published by Claude Barbin, in 1693, more than
twelve years after the death of the author (17th May, 1680). The
reader will find some repetitions, but also some very valuable
maxims.]
LXXVI.—Many
persons wish to be devout; but no one wishes to be humble.
LXXVII.—The labour of the body
frees us from the pains of the mind, and thus makes the poor happy.
LXXVIII.—True penitential sorrows
(mortifications) are those which are not known, vanity renders the
others easy enough.
LXXIX.—Humility
is the altar upon which God wishes that we should offer him his
sacrifices.
LXXX.—Few
things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool
content; that is why most men are miserable.
LXXXI.—We
trouble ourselves less to become happy, than to make others believe
we are so.
LXXXII.—It is more easy to
extinguish the first desire than to satisfy those which follow.
LXXXIII.—Wisdom is to the soul what
health is to the body.
LXXXIV.—The great ones of the earth
can neither command health of body nor repose of mind, and they buy
always at too dear a price the good they can acquire.
LXXXV.—Before
strongly desiring anything we should examine what happiness he has
who possesses it.
LXXXVI.—A true friend is the
greatest of all goods, and that of which we think least of
acquiring.
LXXXVII.—Lovers do not wish to see
the faults of their mistresses until their enchantment is at an end.
LXXXVIII.—Prudence and love are not
made for each other; in the ratio that love increases, prudence
diminishes.
LXXXIX.—It is sometimes pleasing to
a husband to have a jealous wife; he hears her always speaking of
the beloved object.
XC.—How
much is a woman to be pitied who is at the same time possessed of
virtue and love!
XCI.—The
wise man finds it better not to enter the encounter than to conquer.
[Somewhat similar to
Goldsmith's sage— "Who quits {a} world where strong temptations try,
And since 'tis hard to co{mbat}, learns to fly."]
XCII.—It
is more necessary to study men than books.
["The proper study of
mankind is man."—Pope {Essay On Man, (1733), Epistle II, line
2}.]
XCIII.—Good
and evil ordinarily come to those who have most of one or the other.
XCIV.—The
accent and character of one's native country dwells in the mind and
heart as on the tongue. (Repitition Of Maxim 342.)
XCV.—The
greater part of men have qualities which, like those of plants, are
discovered by chance. (Repitition Of Maxim 344.)
XCVI.—A
good woman is a hidden treasure; he who discovers her will do well
not to boast about it. (See Maxim 368.)
XCVII.—Most
women do not weep for the loss of a lover to show that they have
been loved so much as to show that they are worth being loved. (See
Maxim 362.)
XCVIII.—There are many virtuous
women who are weary of the part they have played. (See Maxim
367.)
XCIX.—If
we think we love for love's sake we are much mistaken. (See Maxim
374.)
C.—The
restraint we lay upon ourselves to be constant, is not much better
than an inconstancy. (See Maxim 369, 381.)
CI.—There
are those who avoid our jealousy, of whom we ought to be jealous. (See
Maxim 359.)
CII.—Jealousy
is always born with love, but does not always die with it. (See
Maxim 361.)
CIII.—When
we love too much it is difficult to discover when we have ceased to
be beloved.
CIV.—We
know very well that we should not talk about our wives, but we do
not remember that it is not so well to speak of ourselves. (See
Maxim 364.)
CV.—Chance
makes us known to others and to ourselves. (See Maxim 345.)
CVI.—We
find very few people of good sense, except those who are of our own
opinion. (See Maxim 347.)
CVII.—We
commonly praise the good hearts of those who admire us. (See
Maxim 356.)
CVIII.—Man
only blames himself in order that he may be praised.
CIX.—Little
minds are wounded by the smallest things. (See Maxim 357.)
CX.—There
are certain faults which placed in a good light please more than
perfection itself. (See Maxim 354.)
CXI.—That
which makes us so bitter against those who do us a shrewd turn, is
because they think themselves more clever than we are. (See Maxim
350.)
CXII.—We
are always bored by those whom we bore. (See Maxim 352.)
CXIII.—The
harm that others do us is often less than that we do ourselves. (See
Maxim 363.)
CXIV.—It
is never more difficult to speak well than when we are ashamed of
being silent.
CXV.—Those
faults are always pardonable that we have the courage to avow.
CXVI.—The
greatest fault of penetration is not that it goes to the bottom of a
matter—but beyond it. (See Maxim 377.)
CXVII.—We
give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. (See
Maxim 378.)
CXVIII.—When our merit declines,
our taste declines also. (See Maxim 379.)
CXIX.—Fortune
discovers our vices and our virtues, as the light makes objects
plain to the sight. (See Maxim 380.)
CXX.—Our
actions are like rhymed verse-ends (Bouts-Rimés) which
everyone turns as he pleases. (See Maxim 382.)
CXXI.—There
is nothing more natural, nor more deceptive, than to believe that we
are beloved.
CXXII.—We
would rather see those to whom we have done a benefit, than those
who have done us one.
CXXIII.—It is more difficult to
hide the opinions we have than to feign those which we have not.
CXXIV.—Renewed
friendships require more care than those that have never been
broken.
CXXV.—A
man to whom no one is pleasing is much more unhappy than one who
pleases nobody.
REFLECTIONS ON VARIOUS
SUBJECTS
I. On Confidence.
Though sincerity and
confidence have many points of resemblance, they have yet many
points of difference.
Sincerity is an openness of
heart, which shows us what we are, a love of truth, a dislike to
deception, a wish to compensate our faults and to lessen them by the
merit of confessing them.
Confidence leaves us less
liberty, its rules are stricter, it requires more prudence and
reticence, and we are not always free to give it. It relates not
only to ourselves, since our interests are often mixed up with those
of others; it requires great delicacy not to expose our friends in
exposing ourselves, not to draw upon their goodness to enhance the
value of what we give.
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 which gives them a claim
upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit. I do
not wish from what I have said to depreciate confidence, so
necessary to man. It is in society the link between acquaintance and
friendship. I only wish to state its limits to make it true and
real. I would that it was always sincere, always discreet, and that
it had neither weakness nor interest. I know it is hard to place
proper limits on being taken into all our friends' confidence, and
taking them into all ours.
Most frequently we make
confidants from vanity, a love of talking, a wish to win the
confidence of others, and make an exchange of secrets.
Some may have a motive for
confiding in us, towards whom we have no motive for confiding. With
them we discharge the obligation in keeping their secrets and
trusting them with small confidences.
Others whose fidelity we
know trust nothing to us, but we confide in them by choice and
inclination.
We should hide from them
nothing that concerns us, we should always show them with equal
truth, our virtues and our vices, without exaggerating the one or
diminishing the other. We should make it a rule never to have half
confidences. They always embarrass those who give them, and
dissatisfy those who receive them. They shed an uncertain light on
what we want hidden, increase curiosity, entitling the recipients to
know more, giving them leave to consider themselves free to talk of
what they have guessed. It is far safer and more honest to tell
nothing than to be silent when we have begun to tell. There are
other rules to be observed in matters confided to us, all are
important, to all prudence and trust are essential.
Everyone agrees that a
secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the
nature and importance of secresy. Too often we consult ourselves as
to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few
permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not
last for ever.
With those friends whose
truth we know we have the closest intimacy. They have always spoken
unreservedly to us, we should always do the same to them. They know
our habits and connexions, and see too clearly not to perceive the
slightest change. They may have elsewhere learnt what we have
promised not to tell. It is not in our power to tell them what has
been entrusted to us, though it might tend to their interest to know
it. We feel as confident of them as of ourselves, and we are reduced
to the hard fate of losing their friendship, which is dear to us, or
of being faithless as regards a secret. This is doubtless the
hardest test of fidelity, but it should not move an honest man; it
is then that he can sacrifice himself to others. His first duty is
to rigidly keep his trust in its entirety. He should not only
control and guard his and his voice, but even his lighter talk, so
that nothing be seen in his conversation or manner that could direct
the curiosity of others towards that which he wishes to conceal.
We have often need of
strength and prudence wherewith to oppose the exigencies of most of
our friends who make a claim on our confidence, and seek to know all
about us. We should never allow them to acquire this unexceptionable
right. There are accidents and circumstances which do not fall in
their cognizance; if they complain, we should endure their
complaints and excuse ourselves with gentleness, but if they are
still unreasonable, we should sacrifice their friendship to our
duty, and choose between two inevitable evils, the one reparable,
the other irreparable.
II. On Difference of
Character.
Although all the qualities
of mind may be united in a great genius, yet there are some which
are special and peculiar to him; his views are unlimited; he always
acts uniformly and with the same activity; he sees distant objects
as if present; he comprehends and grasps the greatest, sees and
notices the smallest matters; his thoughts are elevated, broad, just
and intelligible. Nothing escapes his observation, and he often
finds truth in spite of the obscurity that hides her from others.
A lofty mind always thinks
nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies,
places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate
adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own
thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable.
A clever, pliant, winning
mind knows how to avoid and overcome difficulties. Bending easily to
what it wants, it understands the inclination and temper it is
dealing with, and by managing their interests it advances and
establishes its own.
A well regulated mind sees
all things as they should be seen, appraises them at their proper
value, turns them to its own advantage, and adheres firmly to its
own opinions as it knows all their force and weight.
A difference exists between
a working mind and a business-like mind. We can undertake business
without turning it to our own interest. Some are clever only in what
does not concern them, and the reverse in all that does. There are
others again whose cleverness is limited to their own business, and
who know how to turn everything to their own advantage.
It is possible to have a
serious turn of mind, and yet to talk pleasantly and cheerfully.
This class of mind is suited to all persons in all times of life.
Young persons have usually a cheerful and satirical turn, untempered
by seriousness, thus often making themselves disagreeable.
No part is easier to play
than that of being always pleasant; and the applause we sometimes
receive in censuring others is not worth being exposed to the chance
of offending them when they are out of temper.
Satire is at once the most
agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases
when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much,
yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the
person satirised can join in the satire.
It is unfortunate to have a
satirical turn without affecting to be pleased or without loving to
jest. It requires much adroitness to continue satirical without
falling into one of these extremes.
Raillery is a kind of mirth
which takes possession of the imagination, and shows every object in
an absurd light; wit combines more or less softness or harshness.
There is a kind of refined
and flattering raillery that only hits the faults that persons
admit, which understands how to hide the praise it gives under the
appearance of blame, and shows the good while feigning a wish to
hide it.
An acute mind and a cunning
mind are very dissimilar. The first always pleases; it is
unfettered, it perceives the most delicate and sees the most
imperceptible matters. A cunning spirit never goes straight, it
endeavours to secure its object by byeways and short cuts. This
conduct is soon found out, it always gives rise to distrust and
never reaches greatness.
There is a difference
between an ardent and a brilliant mind, a fiery spirit travels
further and faster, while a brilliant mind is sparkling, attractive,
accurate.
Gentleness of mind is an
easy and accommodating manner which always pleases when not insipid.
A mind full of details
devotes itself to the management and regulation of the smallest
particulars it meets with. This distinction is usually limited to
little matters, yet it is not absolutely incompatible with
greatness, and when these two qualities are united in the same mind
they raise it infinitely above others.
The expression "Bel
Esprit" is much perverted, for all that one can say of the
different kinds of mind meet together in the "Bel Esprit."
Yet as the epithet is bestowed on an infinite number of bad poets
and tedious authors, it is more often used to ridicule than to
praise.
There are yet many other
epithets for the mind which mean the same thing, the difference lies
in the tone and manner of saying them, but as tones and manner
cannot appear in writing I shall not go into distinctions I cannot
explain. Custom explains this in saying that a man has wit, has much
wit, that he is a great wit; there are tones and manners which make
all the difference between phrases which seem all alike on paper,
and yet express a different order of mind.
So we say that a man has
only one kind of wit, that he has several, that he has every variety
of wit.
One can be a fool with much
wit, and one need not be a fool even with very little wit.
To have much mind is a
doubtful expression. It may mean every class of mind that can be
mentioned, it may mean none in particular. It may mean that he talks
sensibly while he acts foolishly. We may have a mind, but a narrow
one. A mind may be fitted for some things, not for others. We may
have a large measure of mind fitted for nothing, and one is often
inconvenienced with much mind; still of this kind of mind we may say
that it is sometimes pleasing in society.
Though the gifts of the mind
are infinite, they can, it seems to me, be thus classified.
There are some so beautiful
that everyone can see and feel their beauty.
There are some lovely, it is
true, but which are wearisome.
There are some which are
lovely, which all the world admire, but without knowing why.
There are some so refined
and delicate that few are capable even of remarking all their
beauties.
There are others which,
though imperfect, yet are produced with such skill, and sustained
and managed with such sense and grace, that they even deserve to be
admired.
III. On Taste.
Some persons have more wit
than taste, others have more taste than wit. There is greater vanity
and caprice in taste than in wit.
The word taste has different
meanings, which it is easy to mistake. There is a difference between
the taste which in certain objects has an attraction for us, and the
taste that makes us understand and distinguish the qualities we
judge by.
We may like a comedy without
having a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to criticise it
accurately. Some tastes lead us imperceptibly to objects, from which
others carry us away by their force or intensity.
Some persons have bad taste
in everything, others have bad taste only in some things, but a
correct and good taste in matters within their capacity. Some have
peculiar taste, which they know to be bad, but which they still
follow. Some have a doubtful taste, and let chance decide, their
indecision makes them change, and they are affected with pleasure or
weariness on their friends' judgment. Others are always prejudiced,
they are the slaves of their tastes, which they adhere to in
everything. Some know what is good, and are horrified at what is
not; their opinions are clear and true, and they find the reason for
their taste in their mind and understanding.
Some have a species of
instinct (the source of which they are ignorant of), and decide all
questions that come before them by its aid, and always decide
rightly.
These follow their taste
more than their intelligence, because they do not permit their
temper and self-love to prevail over their natural discernment. All
they do is in harmony, all is in the same spirit. This harmony makes
them decide correctly on matters, and form a correct estimate of
their value. But speaking generally there are few who have a taste
fixed and independent of that of their friends, they follow example
and fashion which generally form the standard of taste.
In all the diversities of
taste that we discern, it is very rare and almost impossible to meet
with that sort of good taste that knows how to set a price on the
particular, and yet understands the right value that should be
placed on all. Our knowledge is too limited, and that correct
discernment of good qualities which goes to form a correct judgment
is too seldom to be met with except in regard to matters that do not
concern us.
As regards ourselves our
taste has not this all-important discernment. Preoccupation,
trouble, all that concern us, present it to us in another aspect. We
do not see with the same eyes what does and what does not relate to
us. Our taste is guided by the bent of our self-love and temper,
which supplies us with new views which we adapt to an infinite
number of changes and uncertainties. Our taste is no longer our own,
we cease to control it, without our consent it changes, and the same
objects appear to us in such divers aspects that ultimately we fail
to perceive what we have seen and heard.
IV. On Society.
In speaking of society my
plan is not to speak of friendship, for, though they have some
connection, they are yet very different. The former has more in it
of greatness and humility, and the greatest merit of the latter is
to resemble the former.
For the present I shall
speak of that particular kind of intercourse that gentlemen should
have with each other. It would be idle to show how far society is
essential to men: all seek for it, and all find it, but few adopt
the method of making it pleasant and lasting.
Everyone seeks to find his
pleasure and his advantage at the expense of others. We prefer
ourselves always to those with whom we intend to live, and they
almost always perceive the preference. It is this which disturbs and
destroys society. We should discover a means to hide this love of
selection since it is too ingrained in us to be in our power to
destroy. We should make our pleasure that of other persons, to
humour, never to wound their self-love.
The mind has a great part to
do in so great a work, but it is not merely sufficient for us to
guide it in the different courses it should hold.
The agreement we meet
between minds would not keep society together for long if she was
not governed and sustained by good sense, temper, and by the
consideration which ought to exist between persons who have to live
together.
It sometimes happens that
persons opposite in temper and mind become united. They doubtless
hold together for different reasons, which cannot last for long.
Society may subsist between those who are our inferiors by birth or
by personal qualities, but those who have these advantages should
not abuse them. They should seldom let it be perceived that they
serve to instruct others. They should let their conduct show that
they, too, have need to be guided and led by reason, and accommodate
themselves as far as possible to the feeling and the interests of
the others.
To make society pleasant, it
is essential that each should retain his freedom of action. A man
should not see himself, or he should see himself without dependence,
and at the same time amuse himself. He should have the power of
separating himself without that separation bringing any change on
the society. He should have the power to pass by one and the other,
if he does not wish to expose himself to occasional embarrassments;
and he should remember that he is often bored when he believes he
has not the power even to bore. He should share in what he believes
to be the amusement of persons with whom he wishes to live, but he
should not always be liable to the trouble of providing them.
Complaisance is essential in
society, but it should have its limits, it becomes a slavery when it
is extreme. We should so render a free consent, that in following
the opinion of our friends they should believe that they follow
ours.
We should readily excuse our
friends when their faults are born with them, and they are less than
their good qualities. We should often avoid to show what they have
said, and what they have left unsaid. We should try to make them
perceive their faults, so as to give them the merit of correcting
them.
There is a kind of
politeness which is necessary in the intercourse among gentlemen, it
makes them comprehend badinage, and it keeps them from using and
employing certain figures of speech, too rude and unrefined, which
are often used thoughtlessly when we hold to our opinion with too
much warmth.
The intercourse of gentlemen
cannot subsist without a certain kind of confidence; this should be
equal on both sides. Each should have an appearance of sincerity and
of discretion which never causes the fear of anything imprudent
being said.
There should be some variety
in wit. Those who have only one kind of wit cannot please for long
unless they can take different roads, and not both use the same
talents, thus adding to the pleasure of society, and keeping the
same harmony that different voices and different instruments should
observe in music; and as it is detrimental to the quiet of society,
that many persons should have the same interests, it is yet as
necessary for it that their interests should not be different.
We should anticipate what
can please our friends, find out how to be useful to them so as to
exempt them from annoyance, and when we cannot avert evils, seem to
participate in them, insensibly obliterate without attempting to
destroy them at a blow, and place agreeable objects in their place,
or at least such as will interest them. We should talk of subjects
that concern them, but only so far as they like, and we should take
great care where we draw the line. There is a species of politeness,
and we may say a similar species of humanity, which does not enter
too quickly into the recesses of the heart. It often takes pains to
allow us to see all that our friends know, while they have still the
advantage of not knowing to the full when we have penetrated the
depth of the heart.
Thus the intercourse between
gentlemen at once gives them familiarity and furnishes them with an
infinite number of subjects on which to talk freely.
Few persons have sufficient
tact and good sense fairly to appreciate many matters that are
essential to maintain society. We desire to turn away at a certain
point, but we do not want to be mixed up in everything, and we fear
to know all kinds of truth.
As we should stand at a
certain distance to view objects, so we should also stand at a
distance to observe society; each has its proper point of view from
which it should be regarded. It is quite right that it should not be
looked at too closely, for there is hardly a man who in all matters
allows himself to be seen as he really is.
V. On Conversation.
The reason why so few
persons are agreeable in conversation is that each thinks more of
what he desires to say, than of what the others say, and that we
make bad listeners when we want to speak.
Yet it is necessary to
listen to those who talk, we should give them the time they want,
and let them say even senseless things; never contradict or
interrupt them; on the contrary, we should enter into their mind and
taste, illustrate their meaning, praise anything they say that
deserves praise, and let them see we praise more from our choice
than from agreement with them.
To please others we should
talk on subjects they like and that interest them, avoid disputes
upon indifferent matters, seldom ask questions, and never let them
see that we pretend to be better informed than they are.
We should talk in a more or
less serious manner, and upon more or less abstruse subjects,
according to the temper and understanding of the persons we talk
with, and readily give them the advantage of deciding without
obliging them to answer when they are not anxious to talk.
After having in this way
fulfilled the duties of politeness, we can speak our opinions to our
listeners when we find an opportunity without a sign of presumption
or opinionatedness. Above all things we should avoid often talking
of ourselves and giving ourselves as an example; nothing is more
tiresome than a man who quotes himself for everything.
We cannot give too great
study to find out the manner and the capacity of those with whom we
talk, so as to join in the conversation of those who have more than
ourselves without hurting by this preference the wishes or interests
of others.
Then we should modestly use
all the modes abovementioned to show our thoughts to them, and make
them, if possible, believe that we take our ideas from them.
We should never say anything
with an air of authority, nor show any superiority of mind. We
should avoid far-fetched expressions, expressions hard or forced,
and never let the words be grander than the matter.
It is not wrong to retain
our opinions if they are reasonable, but we should yield to reason,
wherever she appears and from whatever side she comes, she alone
should govern our opinions, we should follow her without opposing
the opinions of others, and without seeming to ignore what they say.
It is dangerous to seek to
be always the leader of the conversation, and to push a good
argument too hard, when we have found one. Civility often hides half
its understanding, and when it meets with an opinionated man who
defends the bad side, spares him the disgrace of giving way.
We are sure to displease
when we speak too long and too often of one subject, and when we try
to turn the conversation upon subjects that we think more
instructive than others, we should enter indifferently upon every
subject that is agreeable to others, stopping where they wish, and
avoiding all they do not agree with.
Every kind of conversation,
however witty it may be, is not equally fitted for all clever
persons; we should select what is to their taste and suitable to
their condition, their sex, their talents, and also choose the time
to say it.
We should observe the place,
the occasion, the temper in which we find the person who listens to
us, for if there is much art in speaking to the purpose, there is no
less in knowing when to be silent. There is an eloquent silence
which serves to approve or to condemn, there is a silence of
discretion and of respect. In a word, there is a tone, an air, a
manner, which renders everything in conversation agreeable or
disagreeable, refined or vulgar.
But it is given to few
persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often
break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to
speak little, and to say nothing that will ever give ground for
regret.
VI. Falsehood.
We are false in different
ways. There are some men who are false from wishing always to appear
what they are not. There are some who have better faith, who are
born false, who deceive themselves, and who never see themselves as
they really are; to some is given a true understanding and a false
taste, others have a false understanding and some correctness in
taste; there are some who have not any falsity either in taste or
mind. These last are very rare, for to speak generally, there is no
one who has not some falseness in some corner of his mind or his
taste.
What makes this falseness so
universal, is that as our qualities are uncertain and confused, so
too, are our tastes; we do not see things exactly as they are, we
value them more or less than they are worth, and do not bring them
into unison with ourselves in a manner which suits them or suits our
condition or qualities.
This mistake gives rise to
an infinite number of falsities in the taste and in the mind. Our
self-love is flattered by all that presents itself to us under the
guise of good.
But as there are many kinds
of good which affect our vanity and our temper, so they are often
followed from custom or advantage. We follow because the others
follow, without considering that the same feeling ought not to be
equally embarrassing to all kinds of persons, and that it should
attach itself more or less firmly, according as persons agree more
or less with those who follow them.
We dread still more to show
falseness in taste than in mind. Gentleness should approve without
prejudice what deserves to be approved, follow what deserves to be
followed, and take offence at nothing. But there should be great
distinction and great accuracy. We should distinguish between what
is good in the abstract and what is good for ourselves, and always
follow in reason the natural inclination which carries us towards
matters that please us.
If men only wished to excel
by the help of their own talents, and in following their duty, there
would be nothing false in their taste or in their conduct. They
would show what they were, they would judge matters by their lights,
and they would attract by their reason. There would be a discernment
in their views, in their sentiments, their taste would be true, it
would come to them direct, and not from others, they would follow
from choice and not from habit or chance. If we are false in
admiring what should not be admired, it is oftener from envy that we
affix a value to qualities which are good in themselves, but which
do not become us. A magistrate is false when he flatters himself he
is brave, and that he will be able to be bold in certain cases. He
should be as firm and stedfast in a plot which ought to be stifled
without fear of being false, as he would be false and absurd in
fighting a duel about it.
A woman may like science,
but all sciences are not suitable for her, and the doctrines of
certain sciences never become her, and when applied by her are
always false.
We should allow reason and
good sense to fix the value of things, they should determine our
taste and give things the merit they deserve, and the importance it
is fitting we should give them. But nearly all men are deceived in
the price and in the value, and in these mistakes there is always a
kind of falseness.
VII. On Air and Manner.
There is an air which
belongs to the figure and talents of each individual; we always lose
it when we abandon it to assume another.
We should try to find out
what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as
perfect as we can. This is the reason that the majority of children
please. It is because they are wrapt up in the air and manner nature
has given them, and are ignorant of any other. They are changed and
corrupted when they quit infancy, they think they should imitate
what they see, and they are not altogether able to imitate it. In
this imitation there is always something of falsity and uncertainty.
They have nothing settled in their manner and opinions. Instead of
being in reality what they want to appear, they seek to appear what
they are not.
All men want to be
different, and to be greater than they are; they seek for an air
other than their own, and a mind different from what they possess;
they take their style and manner at chance. They make experiments
upon themselves without considering that what suits one person will
not suit everyone, that there is no universal rule for taste or
manners, and that there are no good copies.
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.
I do not pretend, from what
I say, that each should so wrap himself up in himself as not to be
able to follow example, or to add to his own, useful and serviceable
habits, which nature has not given him. Arts and sciences may be
proper for the greater part of those who are capable for them. Good
manners and politeness are proper for all the world. But, yet
acquired qualities should always have a certain agreement and a
certain union with our own natural qualities, which they
imperceptibly extend and increase. We are elevated to a rank and
dignity above ourselves. We are often engaged in a new profession
for which nature has not adapted us. All these conditions have each
an air which belong to them, but which does not always agree with
our natural manner. This change of our fortune often changes our air
and our manners, and augments the air of dignity, which is always
false when it is too marked, and when it is not united and
amalgamated with that which nature has given us. We should unite and
blend them together, and thus render them such that they can never
be separated.
We should not speak of all
subjects in one tone and in the same manner. We do not march at the
head of a regiment as we walk on a promenade; and we should use the
same style in which we should naturally speak of different things in
the same way, with the same difference as we should walk, but always
naturally, and as is suitable, either at the head of a regiment or
on a promenade. There are some who are not content to abandon the
air and manner natural to them to assume those of the rank and
dignities to which they have arrived. There are some who assume
prematurely the air of the dignities and rank to which they aspire.
How many lieutenantgenerals assume to be marshals of France, how
many barristers vainly repeat the style of the Chancellor and how
many female citizens give themselves the airs of duchesses.
But what we are most often
vexed at is that no one knows how to conform his air and manners
with his appearance, nor his style and words with his thoughts and
sentiments, that every one forgets himself and how far he is
insensibly removed from the truth. Nearly every one falls into this
fault in some way. No one has an ear sufficiently fine to mark
perfectly this kind of cadence.
Thousands of people with
good qualities are displeasing; thousands pleasing with far less
abilities, and why? Because the first wish to appear to be what they
are not, the second are what they appear.
Some of the advantages or
disadvantages that we have received from nature please in proportion
as we know the air, the style, the manner, the sentiments that
coincide with our condition and our appearance, and displease in the
proportion they are removed from that point.
