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diff --git a/9105.txt b/9105.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..018211e --- /dev/null +++ b/9105.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5624 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Reflections, by Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Reflections + Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims + +Author: Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9105] +Posting Date: August 9, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REFLECTIONS *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +REFLECTIONS; OR SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS + +By Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac + + +Translated from the Editions of 1678 and 1827 with introduction, notes, +and some account of the author and his times. + +By J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B and J. Hain Friswell + +Simpson Low, Son, and Marston, 188, Fleet Street. + +1871. + + +{TRANSCRIBERS NOTES: spelling variants are preserved (e.g. labour +instead of labor, criticise instead of criticize, etc.); the +translators' comments are in square brackets [...] as they are in the +text; footnotes are indicated by * and appear immediately following the +passage containing the note (in the text they appear at the bottom of +the page); and, finally, corrections and addenda are in curly brackets +{...}.} + + + +ROCHEFOUCAULD + +"As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew From Nature--I believe them true. They +argue no corrupted mind In him; the fault is in mankind."--Swift. + +"Les Maximes de la Rochefoucauld sont des proverbs des gens +d'esprit."--Montesquieu. + +"Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations."--Sir J. Mackintosh. + +"Translators should not work alone; for good Et Propria Verba do not +always occur to one mind."--Luther's Table Talk, iii. + + + +CONTENTS + + + Preface (translator's) + Introduction (translator's) + Reflections and Moral Maxims + First Supplement + Second Supplement + Third Supplement + Reflections on Various Subjects + Index + + + + +Preface. + + {Translators'} +Some apology must be made for an attempt "to translate the +untranslatable." Notwithstanding there are no less than eight English +translations of La Rochefoucauld, hardly any are readable, none are free +from faults, and all fail more or less to convey the author's meaning. +Though so often translated, there is not a complete English edition +of the Maxims and Reflections. All the translations are confined +exclusively to the Maxims, none include the Reflections. This may be +accounted for, from the fact that most of the translations are taken +from the old editions of the Maxims, in which the Reflections do +not appear. Until M. Suard devoted his attention to the text of +Rochefoucauld, the various editions were but reprints of the preceding +ones, without any regard to the alterations made by the author in the +later editions published during his life-time. So much was this the +case, that Maxims which had been rejected by Rochefoucauld in his last +edition, were still retained in the body of the work. To give but one +example, the celebrated Maxim as to the misfortunes of our friends, was +omitted in the last edition of the book, published in Rochefoucauld's +life-time, yet in every English edition this Maxim appears in the body +of the work. + +M. Aime Martin in 1827 published an edition of the Maxims and +Reflections which has ever since been the standard text of Rochefoucauld +in France. The Maxims are printed from the edition of 1678, the last +published during the author's life, and the last which received his +corrections. To this edition were added two Supplements; the first +containing the Maxims which had appeared in the editions of 1665, 1666, +and 1675, and which were afterwards omitted; the second, some additional +Maxims found among various of the author's manuscripts in the Royal +Library at Paris. And a Series of Reflections which had been previously +published in a work called "Receuil de pieces d'histoire et de +litterature." Paris, 1731. They were first published with the Maxims in +an edition by Gabriel Brotier. + +In an edition of Rochefoucauld entitled "Reflexions, ou Sentences et +Maximes Morales, augmentees de plus deux cent nouvelles Maximes et +Maximes et Pensees diverses suivant les copies Imprimees a Paris, chez +Claude Barbin, et Matre Cramoisy 1692,"* some fifty Maxims were added, +ascribed by the editor to Rochefoucauld, and as his family allowed them +to be published under his name, it seems probable they were genuine. +These fifty form the third supplement to this book. + + *In all the French editions this book is spoken of as + published in 1693. The only copy I have seen is in the + Cambridge University Library, 47, 16, 81, and is called + "Reflexions Morales." + + +The apology for the present edition of Rochefoucauld must therefore be +twofold: firstly, that it is an attempt to give the public a complete +English edition of Rochefoucauld's works as a moralist. The body of the +work comprises the Maxims as the author finally left them, the first +supplement, those published in former editions, and rejected by the +author in the later; the second, the unpublished Maxims taken from the +author's correspondence and manuscripts, and the third, the Maxims first +published in 1692. While the Reflections, in which the thoughts in the +Maxims are extended and elaborated, now appear in English for the first +time. And secondly, that it is an attempt (to quote the preface of the +edition of 1749) "to do the Duc de la Rochefoucauld the justice to make +him speak English." + + + + +Introduction + + {Translators'} +The description of the "ancien regime" in France, "a despotism tempered +by epigrams," like most epigrammatic sentences, contains some truth, +with much fiction. The society of the last half of the seventeenth, and +the whole of the eighteenth centuries, was doubtless greatly influenced +by the precise and terse mode in which the popular writers of that date +expressed their thoughts. To a people naturally inclined to think that +every possible view, every conceivable argument, upon a question is +included in a short aphorism, a shrug, and the word "voila," truths +expressed in condensed sentences must always have a peculiar charm. It +is, perhaps, from this love of epigram, that we find so many eminent +French writers of maxims. Pascal, De Retz, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, +Montesquieu, and Vauvenargues, each contributed to the rich stock of +French epigrams. No other country can show such a list of brilliant +writers--in England certainly we cannot. Our most celebrated, Lord +Bacon, has, by his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their fame +is, to a great measure, obscured. The only Englishman who could have +rivalled La Rochefoucauld or La Bruyere was the Earl of Chesterfield, +and he only could have done so from his very intimate connexion +with France; but unfortunately his brilliant genius was spent in the +impossible task of trying to refine a boorish young Briton, in "cutting +blocks with a razor." + +Of all the French epigrammatic writers La Rochefoucauld is at once the +most widely known, and the most distinguished. Voltaire, whose opinion +on the century of Louis XIV. is entitled to the greatest weight, says, +"One of the works that most largely contributed to form the taste of +the nation, and to diffuse a spirit of justice and precision, is the +collection of maxims, by Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld." + +This Francois, the second Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac, +the author of the maxims, was one of the most illustrious members of the +most illustrious families among the French noblesse. Descended from the +ancient Dukes of Guienne, the founder of the Family Fulk or Foucauld, a +younger branch of the House of Lusignan, was at the commencement of +the eleventh century the Seigneur of a small town, La Roche, in the +Angounois. Our chief knowledge of this feudal lord is drawn from +the monkish chronicles. As the benefactor of the various abbeys and +monasteries in his province, he is naturally spoken of by them in terms +of eulogy, and in the charter of one of the abbeys of Angouleme he is +called, "vir nobilissimus Fulcaldus." His territorial power enabled him +to adopt what was then, as is still in Scotland, a common custom, to +prefix the name of his estate to his surname, and thus to create and +transmit to his descendants the illustrious surname of La Rochefoucauld. + +From that time until that great crisis in the history of the French +aristocracy, the Revolution of 1789, the family of La Rochefoucauld have +been, "if not first, in the very first line" of that most illustrious +body. One Seigneur served under Philip Augustus against Richard Coeur de +Lion, and was made prisoner at the battle of Gisors. The eighth +Seigneur Guy performed a great tilt at Bordeaux, attended (according +to Froissart) to the Lists by some two hundred of his kindred and +relations. The sixteenth Seigneur Francais was chamberlain to Charles +VIII. and Louis XII., and stood at the font as sponsor, giving his name +to that last light of French chivalry, Francis I. In 1515 he was created +a baron, and was afterwards advanced to a count, on account of his great +service to Francis and his predecessors. + +The second count pushed the family fortune still further by obtaining +a patent as the Prince de Marsillac. His widow, Anne de Polignac, +entertained Charles V. at the family chateau at Verteuil, in so princely +a manner that on leaving Charles observed, "He had never entered a +house so redolent of high virtue, uprightness, and lordliness as that +mansion." + +The third count, after serving with distinction under the Duke of +Guise against the Spaniards, was made prisoner at St. Quintin, and only +regained his liberty to fall a victim to the "bloody infamy" of St. +Bartholomew. His son, the fourth count, saved with difficulty from that +massacre, after serving with distinction in the religious wars, was +taken prisoner in a skirmish at St. Yriex la Perche, and murdered by the +Leaguers in cold blood. + +The fifth count, one of the ministers of Louis XIII., after fighting +against the English and Buckingham at the Ile de Re, was created a duke. +His son Francis, the second duke, by his writings has made the family +name a household word. + +The third duke fought in many of the earlier campaigns of Louis XIV. at +Torcy, Lille, Cambray, and was dangerously wounded at the passage of +the Rhine. From his bravery he rose to high favour at Court, and was +appointed Master of the Horse (Grand Veneur) and Lord Chamberlain. His +son, the fourth duke, commanded the regiment of Navarre, and took part +in storming the village of Neerwinden on the day when William III. was +defeated at Landen. He was afterwards created Duc de la Rochequyon and +Marquis de Liancourt. + +The fifth duke, banished from Court by Louis XV., became the friend of +the philosopher Voltaire. + +The sixth duke, the friend of Condorcet, was the last of the long line +of noble lords who bore that distinguished name. In those terrible days +of September, 1792, when the French people were proclaiming universal +humanity, the duke was seized as an aristocrat by the mob at Gisors and +put to death behind his own carriage, in which sat his mother and +his wife, at the very place where, some six centuries previously, his +ancestor had been taken prisoner in a fair fight. A modern writer has +spoken of this murder "as an admirable reprisal upon the grandson +for the writings and conduct of the grandfather." But M. Sainte Beuve +observes as to this, he can see nothing admirable in the death of the +duke, and if it proves anything, it is only that the grandfather was not +so wrong in his judgment of men as is usually supposed. + +Francis, the author, was born on the 15th December 1615. M. Sainte Beuve +divides his life into four periods, first, from his birth till he was +thirty-five, when he became mixed up in the war of the Fronde; the +second period, during the progress of that war; the third, the twelve +years that followed, while he recovered from his wounds, and wrote his +maxims during his retirement from society; and the last from that time +till his death. + +In the same way that Herodotus calls each book of his history by +the name of one of the muses, so each of these four periods of La +Rochefoucauld's life may be associated with the name of a woman who was +for the time his ruling passion. These four ladies are the Duchesse de +Chevreuse, the Duchesse de Longueville, Madame de Sable, and Madame de +La Fayette. + +La Rochefoucauld's early education was neglected; his father, occupied +in the affairs of state, either had not, or did not devote any time to +his education. His natural talents and his habits of observation soon, +however, supplied all deficiencies. By birth and station placed in +the best society of the French Court, he soon became a most finished +courtier. Knowing how precarious Court favour then was, his father, when +young Rochefoucauld was only nine years old, sent him into the army. +He was subsequently attached to the regiment of Auvergne. Though but +sixteen he was present, and took part in the military operations at the +siege of Cassel. The Court of Louis XIII. was then ruled imperiously +by Richelieu. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld was strongly opposed to the +Cardinal's party. By joining in the plots of Gaston of Orleans, he gave +Richelieu an opportunity of ridding Paris of his opposition. When those +plots were discovered, the Duke was sent into a sort of banishment to +Blois. His son, who was then at Court with him, was, upon the pretext of +a liaison with Mdlle. d'Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting on the +Queen (Anne of Austria), but in reality to prevent the Duke learning +what was passing at Paris, sent with his father. The result of the exile +was Rochefoucauld's marriage. With the exception that his wife's name +was Mdlle. Vivonne, and that she was the mother of five sons and three +daughters, nothing is known of her. While Rochefoucauld and his father +were at Blois, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, one of the beauties of +the Court, and the mistress of Louis, was banished to Tours. She and +Rochefoucauld met, and soon became intimate, and for a time she was +destined to be the one motive of his actions. The Duchesse was engaged +in a correspondence with the Court of Spain and the Queen. Into this +plot Rochefoucauld threw himself with all his energy; his connexion with +the Queen brought him back to his old love Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and led +him to her party, which he afterwards followed. The course he took shut +him off from all chance of Court favour. The King regarded him with +coldness, the Cardinal with irritation. Although the Bastile and the +scaffold, the fate of Chalais and Montmorency, were before his eyes, +they failed to deter him from plotting. He was about twenty-three; +returning to Paris, he warmly sided with the Queen. He says in his +Memoirs that the only persons she could then trust were himself and +Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and it was proposed he should take both of them +from Paris to Brussels. Into this plan he entered with all his youthful +indiscretion, it being for several reasons the very one he would wish to +adopt, as it would strengthen his influence with Anne of Austria, place +Richelieu and his master in an uncomfortable position, and save Mdlle. +d'Hautefort from the attentions the King was showing her. + +But Richelieu of course discovered this plot, and Rochefoucauld was, +of course, sent to the Bastile. He was liberated after a week's +imprisonment, but banished to his chateau at Verteuil. + +The reason for this clemency was that the Cardinal desired to win +Rochefoucauld from the Queen's party. A command in the army was offered +to him, but by the Queen's orders refused. + +For some three years Rochefoucauld remained at Verteuil, waiting the +time for his reckoning with Richelieu; speculating on the King's death, +and the favours he would then receive from the Queen. During this period +he was more or less engaged in plotting against his enemy the Cardinal, +and hatching treason with Cinq Mars and De Thou. + +M. Sainte Beuve says, that unless we study this first part of +Rochefoucauld's life, we shall never understand his maxims. The bitter +disappointment of the passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the +deceit and treachery then witnessed, furnished the real key to their +meaning. The cutting cynicism of the morality was built on the ruins of +that chivalrous ambition and romantic affection. He saw his friend Cinq +Mars sent to the scaffold, himself betrayed by men whom he had trusted, +and the only reason he could assign for these actions was intense +selfishness. + +Meanwhile, Richelieu died. Rochefoucauld returned to Court, and found +Anne of Austria regent, and Mazarin minister. The Queen's former friends +flocked there in numbers, expecting that now their time of prosperity +had come. They were bitterly disappointed. Mazarin relied on hope +instead of gratitude, to keep the Queen's adherents on his side. The +most that any received were promises that were never performed. In after +years, doubtless, Rochefoucauld's recollection of his disappointment led +him to write the maxim: "We promise according to our hopes, we perform +according to our fears." But he was not even to receive promises; he +asked for the Governorship of Havre, which was then vacant. He was +flatly refused. Disappointment gave rise to anger, and uniting with +his old flame, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, who had received the same +treatment, and with the Duke of Beaufort, they formed a conspiracy +against the government. The plot was, of course, discovered and crushed. +Beaufort was arrested, the Duchesse banished. Irritated and disgusted, +Rochefoucauld went with the Duc d'Enghein, who was then joining the +army, on a campaign, and here he found the one love of his life, the +Duke's sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady, young, beautiful, and +accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was +the cause of his taking the side of Conde in the subsequent civil war. +Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. He was badly wounded at +the siege of Mardik, and returned from thence to Paris. On recovering +from his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. This war is said +to have been most ridiculous, as being carried on without a definite +object, a plan, or a leader. But this description is hardly correct; it +was the struggle of the French nobility against the rule of the Court; +an attempt, the final attempt, to recover their lost influence over the +state, and to save themselves from sinking under the rule of cardinals +and priests. + +With the general history of that war we have nothing to do; it is far +too complicated and too confused to be stated here. The memoirs of +Rochefoucauld and De Retz will give the details to those who desire to +trace the contests of the factions--the course of the intrigues. We may +confine ourselves to its progress so far as it relates to the Duc de la +Rochefoucauld. + +On the Cardinal causing the Princes de Conde and Conti, and the Duc de +Longueville, to be arrested, Rochefoucauld and the Duchess fled into +Normandy. Leaving her at Dieppe, he went into Poitou, of which province +he had some years previously bought the post of governor. He was there +joined by the Duc de Bouillon, and he and the Duke marched to, and +occupied Bordeaux. Cardinal Mazarin and Marechal de la Meilleraie +advanced in force on Bordeaux, and attacked the town. A bloody battle +followed. Rochefoucauld defended the town with the greatest bravery, +and repulsed the Cardinal. Notwithstanding the repulse, the burghers of +Bordeaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city from destruction. +The Parliament of Bordeaux compelled Rochefoucauld to surrender. He did +so, and returned nominally to Poitou, but in reality in secret to Paris. + +There he found the Queen engaged in trying to maintain her position by +playing off the rival parties of the Prince Conde and the Cardinal +De Retz against each other. Rochefoucauld eagerly espoused his old +party--that of Conde. In August, 1651, the contending parties met in the +Hall of the Parliament of Paris, and it was with great difficulty they +were prevented from coming to blows even there. It is even said that +Rochefoucauld had ordered his followers to murder De Retz. + +Rochefoucauld was soon to undergo a bitter disappointment. While +occupied with party strife and faction in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse +left him, and formed an alliance with the Duc de Nemours. Rochefoucauld +still loved her. It was, probably, thinking of this that he afterwards +wrote, "Jealousy is born with love, but does not die with it." He +endeavoured to get Madame de Chatillon, the old mistress of the Duc de +Nemours, reinstated in favour, but in this he did not succeed. The Duc +de Nemours was soon after killed in a duel. The war went on, and after +several indecisive skirmishes, the decisive battle was fought at Paris, +in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where the Parisians first learnt the use +or the abuse of their favourite defence, the barricade. In this battle, +Rochefoucauld behaved with great bravery. He was wounded in the head, a +wound which for a time deprived him of his sight. Before he recovered, +the war was over, Louis XIV. had attained his majority, the gold of +Mazarin, the arms of Turenne, had been successful, the French nobility +were vanquished, the court supremacy established. + +This completed Rochefoucauld's active life. + +When he recovered his health, he devoted himself to society. Madame +de Sable assumed a hold over him. He lived a quiet life, and occupied +himself in composing an account of his early life, called his "Memoirs," +and his immortal "Maxims." + +From the time he ceased to take part in public life, Rochefoucauld's +real glory began. Having acted the various parts of soldier, politician, +and lover with but small success, he now commenced the part of moralist, +by which he is known to the world. + +Living in the most brilliant society that France possessed, famous +from his writings, distinguished from the part he had taken in public +affairs, he formed the centre of one of those remarkable French literary +societies, a society which numbered among its members La Fontaine, +Racine, Boileau. Among his most attached friends was Madame de +La Fayette (the authoress of the "Princess of Cleeves"), and this +friendship continued until his death. He was not, however, destined to +pass away in that gay society without some troubles. At the passage of +the Rhine in 1672 two of his sons were engaged; the one was killed, the +other severely wounded. Rochefoucauld was much affected by this, but +perhaps still more by the death of the young Duc de Longueville, who +perished on the same occasion. + +Sainte Beuve says that the cynical book and that young life were the +only fruits of the war of the Fronde. Madame de Sevigne, who was with +him when he heard the news of the death of so much that was dear to +him, says, "I saw his heart laid bare on that cruel occasion, and his +courage, his merit, his tenderness, and good sense surpassed all I ever +met with. I hold his wit and accomplishments as nothing in comparison." +The combined effect of his wounds and the gout caused the last years of +Rochefoucauld's life to be spent in great pain. Madame de Sevigne, +who was {with} him continually during his last illness, speaks of the +fortitude with which he bore his sufferings as something to be admired. +Writing to her daughter, she says, "Believe me, it is not for nothing he +has moralised all his life; he has thought so often on his last moments +that they are nothing new or unfamiliar to him." + +In his last illness, the great moralist was attended by the great +divine, Bossuet. Whether that matchless eloquence or his own philosophic +calm had, in spite of his writings, brought him into the state Madame +de Sevigne describes, we know not; but one, or both, contributed to +his passing away in a manner that did not disgrace a French noble or a +French philosopher. On the 11th March, 1680, he ended his stormy life in +peace after so much strife, a loyal subject after so much treason. + +One of his friends, Madame Deshoulieres, shortly before he died sent +him an ode on death, which aptly describes his state-- "Oui, soyez alors +plus ferme, Que ces vulgaires humains Qui, pres de leur dernier terme, +De vaines terreurs sont pleins. En sage que rien n'offense, Livrez-vous +sans resistance A d'inevitables traits; Et, d'une demarche egale, Passez +cette onde fatal Qu'on ne repasse jamais." + +Rochefoucauld left behind him only two works, the one, Memoirs of his +own time, the other the Maxims. The first described the scenes in which +his youth had been spent, and though written in a lively style, and +giving faithful pictures of the intrigues and the scandals of the court +during Louis XIV.'s minority, yet, except to the historian, has ceased +at the present day to be of much interest. It forms, perhaps, the true +key to understand the special as opposed to general application of the +maxims. + +Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that "there are few people so +bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld +to the Commentaries of Caesar," or the statement of Voltaire, "that the +Memoirs are universally read and the Maxims are learnt by heart," few +persons at the present day ever heard of the Memoirs, and the knowledge +of most as to the Maxims is confined to that most celebrated of all, +though omitted from his last edition, "There is something in the +misfortunes of our best friends which does not wholly displease us." Yet +it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener +unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon +none have so many contradictory opinions been given. + +"Few books," says Mr. Hallam, "have been more highly extolled, or more +severely blamed, than the maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucauld, and that +not only here, but also in France." Rousseau speaks of it as, "a sad and +melancholy book," though he goes on to say "it is usually so in youth +when we do not like seeing man as he is." Voltaire says of it, in the +words above quoted, "One of the works which most contributed to form the +taste of the (French) nation, and to give it a spirit of justness +and precision, was the collection of the maxims of Francois Duc de la +Rochefoucauld, though there is scarcely more than one truth running +through the book--that 'self-love is the motive of everything'--yet +this thought is presented under so many varied aspects that it is +nearly always striking. It is not so much a book as it is materials for +ornamenting a book. This little collection was read with avidity, it +taught people to think, and to comprise their thoughts in a lively, +precise, and delicate turn of expression. This was a merit which, before +him, no one in Europe had attained since the revival of letters." + +Dr. Johnson speaks of it as "the only book written by a man of fashion, +of which professed authors need be jealous." + +Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says, "Till you come to +know mankind by your experience, I know no thing nor no man that can +in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as Le Duc de la +Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims, which I would advise you to +look into for some moments at least every day of your life, is, I fear, +too like and too exact a picture of human nature. I own it seems to +degrade it, but yet my experience does not convince me that it degrades +it unjustly." + +Bishop Butler, on the other hand, blames the book in no measured terms. +"There is a strange affectation," says the bishop, "in some people of +explaining away all particular affection, and representing the whole +life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. Hence arise +that surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old, +Hobbes, the author of 'Reflexions Morales,' and the whole set of +writers, of calling actions interested which are done of the most +manifest known interest, merely for the gratification of a present +passion." + +The judgment the reader will be most inclined to adopt will perhaps be +either that of Mr. Hallam, "Concise and energetic in expression, reduced +to those short aphorisms which leave much to the reader's acuteness and +yet save his labour, not often obscure, and never wearisome, an evident +generalisation of long experience, without pedantry, without method, +without deductive reasonings, yet wearing an appearance at least of +profundity; they delight the intelligent though indolent man of the +world, and must be read with some admiration by the philosopher . . . . +yet they bear witness to the contracted observation and the precipitate +inferences which an intercourse with a single class of society scarcely +fails to generate." Or that of Addison, who speaks of Rochefoucauld "as +the great philosopher for administering consolation to the idle, the +curious, and the worthless part of mankind." + +We are fortunately in possession of materials such as rarely exist to +enable us to form a judgment of Rochefoucauld's character. We have, with +a vanity that could only exist in a Frenchman, a description or portrait +of himself, of his own painting, and one of those inimitable living +sketches in which his great enemy, Cardinal De Retz, makes all the chief +actors in the court of the regency of Anne of Austria pass across the +stage before us. + +We will first look on the portrait Rochefoucauld has left us of himself: +"I am," says he, "of a medium height, active, and well-proportioned. My +complexion dark, but uniform, a high forehead; and of moderate height, +black eyes, small, deep set, eyebrows black and thick but well placed. I +am rather embarrassed in talking of my nose, for it is neither flat nor +aquiline, nor large; nor pointed: but I believe, as far as I can say, +it is too large than too small, and comes down just a trifle too low. I +have a large mouth, lips generally red enough, neither shaped well nor +badly. I have white teeth, and fairly even. I have been told I have +a little too much chin. I have just looked at myself in the glass to +ascertain the fact, and I do not know how to decide. As to the shape of +my face, it is either square or oval, but which I should find it very +difficult to say. I have black hair, which curls by nature, and thick +and long enough to entitle me to lay claim to a fine head. I have in my +countenance somewhat of grief and pride, which gives many people an idea +I despise them, although I am not at all given to do so. My gestures are +very free, rather inclined to be too much so, for in speaking they +make me use too much action. Such, candidly, I believe I am in outward +appearance, and I believe it will be found that what I have said +above of myself is not far from the real case. I shall use the same +truthfulness in the remainder of my picture, for I have studied myself +sufficiently to know myself well; and I will lack neither boldness to +speak as freely as I can of my good qualities, nor sincerity to freely +avow that I have faults. + +"In the first place, to speak of my temper. I am melancholy, and I have +hardly been seen for the last three or four years to laugh above three +or four times. It seems to me that my melancholy would be even endurable +and pleasant if I had none but what belonged to me constitutionally; but +it arises from so many other causes, fills my imagination in such a way, +and possesses my mind so strongly that for the greater part of my time +I remain without speaking a word, or give no meaning to what I say. I am +extremely reserved to those I do not know, and I am not very open with +the greater part of those I do. It is a fault I know well, and I should +neglect no means to correct myself of it; but as a certain gloomy air I +have tends to make me seem more reserved than I am in fact, and as it is +not in our power to rid ourselves of a bad expression that arises from +a natural conformation of features, I think that even when I have cured +myself internally, externally some bad expression will always remain. + +"I have ability. I have no hesitation in saying it, as for what purpose +should I pretend otherwise. So great circumvention, and so great +depreciation, in speaking of the gifts one has, seems to me to hide a +little vanity under an apparent modesty, and craftily to try to make +others believe in greater virtues than are imputed to us. On my part +I am content not to be considered better-looking than I am, nor of a +better temper than I describe, nor more witty and clever than I am. Once +more, I have ability, but a mind spoilt by melancholy, for though I +know my own language tolerably well, and have a good memory, a mode +of thought not particularly confused, I yet have so great a mixture of +discontent that I often say what I have to say very badly. + +"The conversation of gentlemen is one of the pleasures that most amuses +me. I like it to be serious and morality to form the substance of it. +Yet I also know how to enjoy it when trifling; and if I do not make +many witty speeches, it is not because I do not appreciate the value of +trifles well said, and that I do not find great amusement in that manner +of raillery in which certain prompt and ready-witted persons excel so +well. I write well in prose; I do well in verse; and if I was envious of +the glory that springs from that quarter, I think with a little labour +I could acquire some reputation. I like reading, in general; but that in +which one finds something to polish the wit and strengthen the soul +is what I like best. But, above all, I have the greatest pleasure in +reading with an intelligent person, for then we reflect constantly upon +what we read, and the observations we make form the most pleasant and +useful form of conversation there is. + +"I am a fair critic of the works in verse and prose that are shown me; +but perhaps I speak my opinion with almost too great freedom. Another +fault in me is that I have sometimes a spirit of delicacy far too +scrupulous, and a spirit of criticism far too severe. I do not dislike +an argument, and I often of my own free will engage in one; but I +generally back my opinion with too much warmth, and sometimes, when the +wrong side is advocated against me, from the strength of my zeal for +reason, I become a little unreasonable myself. + +"I have virtuous sentiments, good inclinations, and so strong a desire +to be a wholly good man that my friend cannot afford me a greater +pleasure than candidly to show me my faults. Those who know me most +intimately, and those who have the goodness sometimes to give me the +above advice, know that I always receive it with all the joy that could +be expected, and with all reverence of mind that could be desired. + +"I have all the passions pretty mildly, and pretty well under control. +I am hardly ever seen in a rage, and I never hated any one. I am not, +however, incapable of avenging myself if I have been offended, or if my +honour demanded I should resent an insult put upon me; on the contrary, +I feel clear that duty would so well discharge the office of hatred in +me that I should follow my revenge with even greater keenness than other +people. + +"Ambition does not weary me. I fear but few things, and I do not fear +death in the least. I am but little given to pity, and I could wish I +was not so at all. Though there is nothing I would not do to comfort an +afflicted person, and I really believe that one should do all one can to +show great sympathy to him for his misfortune, for miserable people are +so foolish that this does them the greatest good in the world; yet +I also hold that we should be content with expressing sympathy, and +carefully avoid having any. It is a passion that is wholly worthless in +a well-regulated mind, which only serves to weaken the heart, and which +should be left to ordinary persons, who, as they never do anything from +reason, have need of passions to stimulate their actions. + +"I love my friends; and I love them to such an extent that I would not +for a moment weigh my interest against theirs. I condescend to them, +I patiently endure their bad temper. But, also, I do not make much of +their caresses, and I do not feel great uneasiness in their absence. + +"Naturally, I have but little curiosity about the majority of things +that stir up curiosity in other men. I am very secret, and I have less +difficulty than most men in holding my tongue as to what is told me in +confidence. I am most particular as to my word, and I would never fail, +whatever might be the consequence, to do what I had promised; and I have +made this an inflexible law during the whole of my life. + +"I keep the most punctilious civility to women. I do not believe I have +ever said anything before them which could cause them annoyance. When +their intellect is cultivated, I prefer their society to that of men: +one there finds a mildness one does not meet with among ourselves, +and it seems to me beyond this that they express themselves with more +neatness, and give a more agreeable turn to the things they talk about. +As for flirtation, I formerly indulged in a little, now I shall do so no +more, though I am still young. I have renounced all flirtation, and I am +simply astonished that there are still so many sensible people who can +occupy their time with it. + +"I wholly approve of real loves; they indicate greatness of soul, and +although, in the uneasiness they give rise to, there is a something +contrary to strict wisdom, they fit in so well with the most severe +virtue, that I believe they cannot be censured with justice. To me who +have known all that is fine and grand in the lofty aspirations of love, +if I ever fall in love, it will assuredly be in love of that nature. But +in accordance with the present turn of my mind, I do not believe that +the knowledge I have of it will ever change from my mind to my heart." + +Such is his own description of himself. Let us now turn to the other +picture, delineated by the man who was his bitterest enemy, and whom (we +say it with regret) Rochefoucauld tried to murder. + +Cardinal De Retz thus paints him:-- "In M. de la Rochefoucauld there was +ever an indescribable something. From his infancy he always wanted to +be mixed up with plots, at a time when he could not understand even +the smallest interests (which has indeed never been his weak point,) +or comprehend greater ones, which in another sense has never been his +strong point. He was never fitted for any matter, and I really cannot +tell the reason. His glance was not sufficiently wide, and he could not +take in at once all that lay in his sight, but his good sense, perfect +in theories, combined with his gentleness, his winning ways, his +pleasing manners, which are perfect, should more than compensate for +his lack of penetration. He always had a natural irresoluteness, but I +cannot say to what this irresolution is to be attributed. It could not +arise in him from the wealth of his imagination, for that was anything +but lively. I cannot put it down to the barrenness of his judgment, for, +although he was not prompt in action, he had a good store of reason. We +see the effects of this irresolution, although we cannot assign a +cause for it. He was never a general, though a great soldier; never, +naturally, a good courtier, although he had always a good idea of being +so. He was never a good partizan, although all his life engaged in +intrigues. That air of pride and timidity which your see in his private +life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner. He always +believed he had need of it; and this, combined with his 'Maxims,' which +show little faith in virtue, and his habitual custom, to give up matters +with the same haste he undertook them, leads me to the conclusion that +he would have done far better to have known his own mind, and have +passed himself off, as he could have done, for the most polished +courtier, the most agreeable man in private life that had appeared in +his century." + +It is but justice to the Cardinal to say, that the Duc is not painted in +such dark colours as we should have expected, judging from what we know +of the character of De Retz. With his marvellous power of depicting +character, a power unrivalled, except by St. Simon and perhaps by Lord +Clarendon, we should have expected the malignity of the priest would +have stamped the features of his great enemy with the impress of infamy, +and not have simply made him appear a courtier, weak, insincere, +and nothing more. Though rather beyond our subject, the character of +Cardinal de Retz, as delineated by Mdme. Sevigne, in one of her letters, +will help us to form a true conclusion on the different characters of +the Duc and the Cardinal. She says:-- "Paul de Gondi Cardinal de Retz +possesses great elevation of character, a certain extent of intellect, +and more of the ostentation than of the true greatness of courage. He +has an extraordinary memory, more energy than polish in his words, an +easy humour, docility of character, and weakness in submitting to +the complaints and reproaches of his friends, a little piety, some +appearances of religion. He appears ambitious without being really so. +Vanity and those who have guided him, have made him undertake great +things, almost all opposed to his profession. He excited the greatest +troubles in the State without any design of turning them to account, and +far from declaring himself the enemy of Cardinal Mazarin with any view +of occupying his place, he thought of nothing but making himself an +object of dread to him, and flattering himself with the false vanity of +being his rival. He was clever enough, however, to take advantage of +the public calamities to get himself made Cardinal. He endured his +imprisonment with firmness, and owed his liberty solely to his own +daring. In the obscurity of a life of wandering and concealment, his +indolence for many years supported him with reputation. He preserved the +Archbishopric of Paris against the power of Cardinal Mazarin, but after +the death of that minister, he resigned it without knowing what he +was doing, and without making use of the opportunity to promote the +interests of himself and his friends. He has taken part in several +conclaves, and his conduct has always increased his reputation. + +"His natural bent is to indolence, nevertheless he labours with +activity in pressing business, and reposes with indifference when it is +concluded. He has great presence of mind, and knows so well how to turn +it to his own advantage on all occasions presented him by fortune, +that it would seem as if he had foreseen and desired them. He loves +to narrate, and seeks to dazzle all his listeners indifferently by his +extraordinary adventures, and his imagination often supplies him with +more than his memory. The generality of his qualities are false, and +what has most contributed to his reputation is his power of throwing +a good light on his faults. He is insensible alike to hatred and to +friendship, whatever pains he may be at to appear taken up with the one +or the other. He is incapable of envy or avarice, whether from virtue or +from carelessness. He has borrowed more from his friends than a private +person could ever hope to be able to repay; he has felt the vanity of +acquiring so much on credit, and of undertaking to discharge it. He has +neither taste nor refinement; he is amused by everything and pleased +by nothing. He avoids difficult matters with considerable address, +not allowing people to penetrate the slight acquaintance he has with +everything. The retreat he has just made from the world is the most +brilliant and the most unreal action of his life; it is a sacrifice he +has made to his pride under the pretence of devotion; he quits the court +to which he cannot attach himself, and retires from a world which is +retiring from him." + +The Maxims were first published in 1665, with a preface by Segrais. +This preface was omitted in the subsequent editions. The first edition +contained 316 maxims, counting the last upon death, which was not +numbered. The second in 1666 contained only 102; the third in 1671, and +the fourth in 1675, 413. In this last edition we first meet with the +introductory maxim, "Our virtues are generally but disguised vices." The +edition of 1678, the fifth, increased the number to 504. This was the +last edition revised by the author, and published in his lifetime. The +text of that edition has been used for the present translation. The next +edition, the sixth, was published in 1693, about thirteen years after +the author's death. This edition included fifty new maxims, attributed +by the editor to Rochefoucauld. Most likely they were his writing, as +the fact was never denied by his family, through whose permission they +were published. They form the third supplement to the translation. This +sixth edition was published by Claude Barbin, and the French editions +since that time have been too numerous to be enumerated. The great +popularity of the Maxims is perhaps best shown from the numerous +translations that have been made of them. No less than eight English +translations, or so-called translations, have appeared; one American, a +Swedish, and a Spanish translation, an Italian imitation, with parallel +passages, and an English imitation by Hazlitt. The titles of the English +editions are as follows:-- i. Seneca Unmasked. By Mrs. Aphara Behn. +London, 1689. She calls the author the Duke of Rushfucave. ii. Moral +Maxims and Reflections, in four parts. By the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. +Now made English. London, 1694. 12 mo. iii. Moral Maxims and Reflections +of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Newly made English. London, 1706. 12 +mo. iv. Moral Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Translated +from the French. With notes. London, 1749. 12 mo. v. Maxims and Moral +Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Revised and improved. +London, 1775. 8 vo. vi. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la +Rochefoucauld. A new edition, revised and improved, by L. D. London, +1781. 8 vo. vii. The Gentleman's Library. La Rochefoucauld's Maxims +and Moral Reflections. London, 1813. 12 mo. viii. Moral Reflections, +Sentences, and Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, newly translated +from the French; with an introduction and notes. London, 1850. 16 mo. +ix. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld: with a +Memoir by the Chevalier de Chatelain. London, 1868. 12 mo. + +The perusal of the Maxims will suggest to every reader to a greater +or less degree, in accordance with the extent of his reading, parallel +passages, and similar ideas. Of ancient writers Rochefoucauld most +strongly reminds us of Tacitus; of modern writers, Junius most strongly +reminds us of Rochefoucauld. Some examples from both are given in the +notes to this translation. It is curious to see how the expressions +of the bitterest writer of English political satire to a great extent +express the same ideas as the great French satirist of private life. +Had space permitted the parallel could have been drawn very closely, and +much of the invective of Junius traced to its source in Rochefoucauld. + +One of the persons whom Rochefoucauld patronised and protected, was +the great French fabulist, La Fontaine. This patronage was repaid by +La Fontaine giving, in one of his fables, "L'Homme et son Image," an +elaborate defence of his patron. After there depicting a man who fancied +himself one of the most lovely in the world, and who complained he +always found all mirrors untrustworthy, at last discovered his real +image reflected in the water. He thus applies his fable:-- "Je parle +a tous: et cette erreur extreme, Est un mal que chacun se plait +d'entretenir, Notre ame, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui meme, Tant +de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui. Miroirs, de nos defauts les +peintres legitimes, Et quant au canal, c'est celui Qui chacun sait, le +livre des MAXIMES." + +It is just this: the book is a mirror in which we all see ourselves. +This has made it so unpopular. It is too true. We dislike to be told +of our faults, while we only like to be told of our neighbour's. +Notwithstanding Rousseau's assertion, it is young men, who, before they +know their own faults and only know their neighbours', that read and +thoroughly appreciate Rochefoucauld. + +After so many varied opinions he then pleases us more and seems far +truer than he is in reality, it is impossible to give any general +conclusion of such distinguished writers on the subject. Each reader +will form his own opinion of the merits of the author and his book. To +some, both will seem deserving of the highest praise; to others both +will seem deserving of the highest censure. The truest judgment as to +the author will be found in the remarks of a countryman of his own, as +to the book in the remarks of a countryman of ours. + +As to the author, M. Sainte Beuve says:--"C'etait un misanthrope poli, +insinuant, souriant, qui precedait de bien peu et preparait avec charme +l'autre MISANTHROPE." + +As to the book, Mr. Hallam says:--"Among the books in ancient and +modern times which record the conclusions of observing men on the moral +qualities of their fellows, a high place should be reserved for the +Maxims of Rochefoucauld". + + + + +REFLECTIONS; OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS + +Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. + +[This epigraph which is the key to the system of La Rochefoucauld, is +found in another form as No. 179 of the maxims of the first edition, +1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd, and reappears for the first +time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as at present, at the head of the +Reflections.--Aime Martin. Its best answer is arrived at by reversing +the predicate and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory +maxim equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues +disguised.] + + +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.--Aime 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?--Aime; 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.--Aime +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 Aime 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."--Aime Martin. But Bonhome, in his L'art De Penser, says +"Plusieurs diraient en periode quarre 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 Conde and Marshal Turenne much less +if we did not want to blame them both. + +[The allusion to Conde and Turenne gives the date at which these maxims +were published in 1665. Conde 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 Bruyere.] + + +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-Rimes) +where to each one puts what construction he pleases. + +[The Bouts-Rimes 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.--Aime 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 +Bruyere, 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 Bruyere. 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 Bruyere: 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 +Bruyere. 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 Bruyere: 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. + +[Aime 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 Sable, 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 Sable, 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 +Sable, 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 Sable, 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 +Pensees 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-Rimes) 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, BY THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD + +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 lieutenant-generals 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. + + + + +INDEX + +THE LETTER R PRECEDING A REFERENCE REFERS TO THE REFLECTIONS, THE ROMAN +NUMERALS REFER TO THE SUPPLEMENTS. + + + + Ability, 162, 165, 199, 245, 283, 288. SEE Cleverness + ------, Sovereign, 244. + Absence, 276. + Accent, country, 342, XCIV. + Accidents, 59, 310. + Acquaintances, 426. SEE FRIENDS. + Acknowledgements, 225. + Actions, 1, 7, 57, 58, 160, 161, 382, 409, CXX. + Actors, 256. + Admiration, 178, 294, 474. + Adroitness of mind, R.II. + Adversity, 25. + -------- of Friends, XV. + Advice, 110, 116, 283, 378, CXVII. + Affairs, 453, R II. + Affectation, 134, 493. + Affections, 232. + Afflictions, 233, 355, 362, 493, XCVII, XV. + Age, 222, 405, LXXIII. SEE Old Age. + Agreeableness, 255, R.V. + Agreement, 240. + Air, 399, 495, R.7. + -- Of a Citizen, 393. + Ambition, 24, 91, 246, 293, 490. + Anger, XXX. + Application, 41, 243. + Appearances, 64, 166, 199, 256, 302, 431, 457, R.VII. + ----------, Conformity of Manners with, R.7. + Applause, 272. + Approbation, 51, 280. + Artifices, 117, 124, 125, 126, R.II. + Astonishment, 384. + Avarice, 167, 491, 492. + + + + Ballads, 211. + Beauty, 240, 474, 497, LI. + ------ of the Mind, R.II. + Bel esprit defined, R.II. + Benefits, 14, 298, 299, 301, CXXII. + Benefactors, 96, 317, CXXII. + Blame, CVIII. + Blindness, XIX. + Boasting, 141, 307. + Boredom, 141, 304, 352. SEE Ennui. + Bouts rimes, 382, CXX. + Bravery, 1, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 365, + 504. SEE Courage and Valour. + Brilliancy of Mind, R.II. + Brilliant things, LII. + + + + Capacity, 375. + Caprice, 45. + Chance, 57, 344, XCV. SEE Fortune. + Character, LVI, R.II. + Chastity, 1. SEE Virtue of Women. + Cheating, 114, 127. + Circumstances, 59, 470. + Civility, 260. + Clemency, 15, 16. + Cleverness, 162, 269, 245, 399. + Coarseness, 372. + Comedy, 211, R.III. + Compassion, 463. SEE Pity. + Complaisance, 481, R.IV. + Conduct, 163, 227, 378, CXVII. + Confidants, whom we make, R.I. + Confidence, 239, 365, 475, XLIX, R.1, R.IV. + Confidence, difference from Sincerity + ----------, defined, R.I. + Consolation, 325. + Constancy, 19, 20, 21, 175, 176, 420. + Contempt, 322. + -------- of Death, 504. + Contentment, LXXX. + Contradictions, 478. + Conversation, 139, 140, 142, 312, 313, 314, 364, 391, + 421, CIV, R.V. + Copies, 133. + Coquetry, 241. SEE Flirtation. + Country Manner, 393. + ------ Accent, 342. + Courage, 1, 214, 215, 216, 219, 221, XLII. SEE Bravery. + Covetousness, opposed to Reason, 469 + Cowardice, 215, 480. + Cowards, 370. + Crimes, 183, 465, XXXV, XXXVII. + Cunning, 126, 129, 394, 407. + Curiosity, 173. + + + + Danger, XLII. + Death, 21, 23, 26. + ----, Contempt of, 504. + Deceit, 86, 117, 118, 124, 127, 129, 395, 434. SEE ALSO + Self-Deceit. + Deception, CXXI. + Decency, 447. + Defects, 31, 90, 493, LXXII. SEE Faults. + Delicacy, 128, R.II. + Dependency, result of Confidence, R.I. + Designs, 160, 161. + Desires, 439, 469, LXXXII, LXXXV. + Despicable Persons, 322. + Detail, Mind given to, R.II. + Details, 41, 106. + Devotion, 427. + Devotees, 427. + Devout, LXXVI. + Differences, 135. + Dignities, R.VII. + Discretion, R.V. + Disguise, 119, 246, 282. + Disgrace, 235, 412. + Dishonour, 326, LXIX. + Distrust, 84, 86, 335. + Divination, 425. + Doubt, 348. + Docility, R.IV. + Dupes, 87, 102. + + + + Education, 261. + Elevation, 399, 400, 403. + Eloquence, 8, 249, 250. + Employments, 164, 419, 449. + Enemies, 114, 397, 458, 463. + Ennui, 122, 141, 304, 312, 352, CXII, R.II. + Envy, 27, 28, 280, 281, 328, 376, 433, 476, 486. + Epithets assigned to the Mind, R.II. + Esteem, 296. + Establish, 56, 280. + Evils, 121, 197, 269, 454, 464, XCIII. + Example, 230. + Exchange of secrets, R.I. + Experience, 405. + Expedients, 287. + Expression, refined, R.V. + + + + Faculties of the Mind, 174. + Failings, 397, 403. + Falseness, R.VI. + --------, disguised, 282. + --------, kinds of, R.VI. + Familiarity, R.IV. + Fame, 157. + Farces, men compared to, 211. + Faults, 37, 112, 155, 184, 190, 194, 196, 251, 354, 365, + 372, 397, 403, 411, 428, 493, 494, V, LXV, CX, + CXV. + Favourites, 55. + Fear, 370, LXVIII. + Feeling, 255. + Ferocity, XXXIII. + Fickleness, 179, 181, 498. + Fidelity, 247. + --------, hardest test of, R.I. + -------- in love, 331, 381, C. + Figure and air, R.VII. + Firmness, 19, 479. + Flattery, 123, 144, 152, 198, 320, 329. + Flirts, 406, 418. + Flirtation, 107, 241, 277, 332, 334, 349, 376, LXIV. + Follies, 156, 300, 408, 416. + Folly, 207, 208, 209, 210, 231, 300, 310, 311, 318, + XXIV. + Fools, 140, 210, 309, 318, 357, 414, 451, 456, + ----, old, 444. + ----, witty, 451, 456. + Force of Mind, 30, 42, 237. + Forgetfulness, XXVI. + Forgiveness, 330. + Fortitude, 19. SEE Bravery. + Fortune, 1, 17, 45, 52, 53, 58, 60, 61, 154, 212, 227, 323, + 343, 380, 391, 392, 399, 403, 435, 449, IX., CXIX. + Friends, 84, 114, 179, 235, 279, 315, 319, 428. + ------, adversity of, XV. + ------, disgrace of, 235. + ------, faults of, 428. + ------, true ones, LXXXVI. + Friendship, 80, 81, 83, 376, 410, 427, 440, 441, 473, + XXII, CXXIV. + ----------, defined, 83. + ----------, women do not care for, 440. + ----------, rarer than love, 473. + Funerals, XXXVIII. + + + + Gallantry, 100. SEE Flirtation. + -------- of mind, 100. + Generosity, 246. + Genius, R.II. + Gentleness, R.VI. + Ghosts, 76. + Gifts of the mind, R.II. + Glory, 157, 198, 221, 268. + Good, 121, 185, 229, 238, 303, XCIII. + ----, how to be, XLVII. + Goodness, 237, 275, 284, XLVI. + Good grace, 67, R.VII. + Good man, who is a, 206. + God nature, 481. + Good qualities, 29, 90, 337, 365, 397, 462. + Good sense, 67, 347, CVI. + Good taste, 258. + ----------, rarity of, R.III. + ----, women, 368, XCVI. + Government of others, 151. + Grace, 67. + Gracefulness, 240. + Gratitude, 223, 224, 225, 279, 298, 438, XLIII. + Gravity, 257. + Great men, what they cannot acquire, LXXXIV. + Great minds, 142. + Great names, 94. + Greediness, 66. + + + + Habit, 426. + Happy, who are, 49. + Happiness, 48, 61, VII, LXXX, LXXXI. + hatred, 338. + Head, 102, 108. + Health, 188, LVII. + Heart, 98, 102, 103, 108, 478, 484. + Heroes, 24, 53, 185. + Honesty, 202, 206. + Honour, 270. + Hope, 168, LXVIII. + Humility, 254, 358, LXXVI, LXXIX + Humiliation, 272. + Humour, 47. SEE Temper. + Hypocrisy, 218. + -------- of afflictions, 233. + + + + Idleness, 169, 266, 267, 398, 482, 487, XVIII., LV. + Ills, 174. SEE Evils. + Illusions, 123. + Imagination, 478. + Imitation, 230, XLIV, R.V. + Impertinence, 502. + Impossibilities, 30. + Incapacity, 126. + Inclination, 253, 390. + Inconsistency, 135. + Inconstancy, 181. + Inconvenience, 242. + Indifference, 172, XXIII. + Indiscretion, 429. + Indolence. SEE Idleness, and Laziness. + Infidelity, 359, 360, 381, 429. + Ingratitude, 96, 226, 306, 317. + Injuries, 14. + Injustice, 78. + Innocence, 465. + Instinct, 123. + Integrity, 170. + Interest, 39, 40, 66, 85, 172, 187, 232, 253, 305, 390. + Interests, 66. + Intrepidity, 217, XL. + Intrigue, 73. + Invention, 287. + + + + Jealousy, 28, 32, 324, 336, 359, 361, 446, 503, CII. + Joy, XIV. + Judges, 268. + Judgment, 89, 97, 248. + -------- of the World, 212, 455. + Justice, 78, 458, XII. + + + + Kindness, 14, 85. + Knowledge, 106. + + + + Labour of Body, effect of, LXXVII. + Laments, 355. + Laziness, 367. SEE Idleness. + Leader, 43. + Levity, 179, 181. + Liberality, 167, 263. + Liberty in Society, R.IV. + Limits to Confidence, R.I. + Little Minds, 142. + Love, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 136, 259, 262, + 274, 286, 296, 321, 335, 336, 348, 349, 351, 353, + 361, 371, 374, 385, 395, 396, 402, 417, 418, 422, + 430, 440, 441, 459, 466, 471, 473, 499, 500, 501, + X, XI, XIII, LVIII, LX, LXII, LXXXVIII, + XCIX, CIII, CXXI. + ---- defined, 68. + ----, Coldness in, LX. + ----, Effect of absence on, 276. + ---- akin to Hate, 111. + ---- of Women, 466, 471, 499. + ----, Novelty in, 274. + ----, Infidelity in, LXIV. + ----, Old age of, 430. + ----, Cure for, 417, 459. + Loss of Friends, XLV. + Lovers, 312, 362, LXXXVII, XCVII. + Lunatic, 353. + Luxury, LIV. + Lying, 63. + + + + Madmen, 353, 414. + Malady, LVII. + Magistrates, R.VI. + Magnanimity, 248, LIII. + ---------- defined, 285. + Malice, 483. + Manners, R.VII. + Mankind, 436, XXXVI. + Marriages, 113. + Maxims, LXVII. + Mediocrity, 375. + Memory, 89, 313. + Men easier to know than Man, 436. + Merit, 50, 92, 95, 153, 156, 165, 166, 273, 291, 379, + 401, 437, 455, CXVIII. + Mind, 101, 103, 265, 357, 448, 482, CIX. + Mind, Capacities of, R.II. + Miserable, 49. + Misfortunes, 19, 24, 174, 325. + ---------- of Friends. XV. + ---------- of Enemies, 463. + Mistaken people, 386. + Mistrust, 86. + Mockery, R.II. + Moderation, 17, 18, 293, 308, III, IV. + Money, Man compared to, XXXII. + Motives, 409. + + + + Names, Great, 94. + Natural goodness, 275. + Natural, to be, 431. + ------, always pleasing, R.VII. + Nature, 53, 153, 189, 365, 404. + Negotiations, 278. + Novelty in study, 178. + ------ in love, 274. + ------ in friendship, 426. + + + + Obligations, 299, 317, 438. SEE Benefits and Gratitude. + Obstinacy, 234, 424. + -------- its cause, 265. + Occasions. SEE Opportunities. + Old Age, 109, 210, 418, 423, 430, 461. + Old Men, 93. + Openness of heart, R.1. + Opinions, 13, 234, CXXIII, R.V. + Opinionatedness, R.V. + Opportunities, 345, 453, CV. + + + + Passions, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 122, 188, 266, 276, 404, + 422, 443, 460, 471, 477, 484, 485, 486, 500, II. + Peace of Mind, VIII. + Penetration, 377, 425, CXVI. + Perfection, R.II. + Perseverance, 177. + Perspective, 104. + Persuasion, 8. + Philosophers, 46, 54, 504, XXI. + Philosophy, 22. + ---------- of a Footman, 504, LXXV. + Pity, 264. + Pleasing, 413, CXXV. + --------, Mode of, XLVIII, R.V. + --------, Mind a, R.II. + Point of view, R.IV. + Politeness, 372, R.V. + Politeness of Mind, 99. + Praise, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 272, 356, + 432, XXVII, CVII. + Preoccupation, 92, R.III. + Pride, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 228, 234, 239, 254, 267, 281, + 450, 462, 463, 472, VI, XIX. + Princes, 15, 320. + Proceedings, 170. + Productions of the Mind, R.II. + Professions, 256. + Promises, 38. + Proportion, R.VI. + Propriety, 447. + -------- in Women, XXXIV. + Prosperity, 25. + Providence, XXXIX. + Prudence, 65, LXXXVIII, R.I. + + + + Qualities, 29, 162, 397, 470, 498, R.VI, R.VII. + --------, Bad, 468. + --------, Good, 88, 337, 462. + --------, Great, 159, 433. + --------, of Mind, classified, R.II. + Quarrels, 496, + Quoting oneself, R.V. + + + + Raillery, R.II, R.IV. + Rank, 401. + Reason, 42, 105, 325, 365, 467, 469, XX, R.VI. + Recollection in Memory{, 313}. + Reconciliation, 82. + Refinement, R.II. + Regret, 355. + Relapses, 193. + Remedies, 288. + -------- for love 459. + Remonstrances, 37. + Repentance, 180. + Repose, 268. + Reproaches, 148. + Reputation, 268, 412. + Resolution, L. + Revenge, 14. + Riches, 54. + Ridicule, 133, 134, 326, 418, 422. + Rules for Conversation, R.V. + Rusticity, 393. + + + + Satire, 483, R.II, R.IV. + Sciences, R.VI. + Secrets, XVI, R.I. + ------, How they should be kept, R.I. + Self-deceit, 115, 452. + Self-love, 2, 3, 4, 228, 236, 247, 261, 262, 339, 494, 500, + I, XVII, XXVIII, XXXIII, LXVI, LXXIV. + -------- in love, 262. + Self-satisfaction, 51. + Sensibility, 275. + Sensible People, 347, CVI. + Sentiment, 255, R.VI. + Severity of Women, 204, 333. + Shame, 213, 220. + Silence, 79, 137, 138, CXIV. + Silliness. SEE Folly. + Simplicity, 289. + Sincerity, 62, 316, 366, 383, 457. + --------, Difference between it and Confidence, R.I. + --------, defined, R.I. + -------- of Lovers, LXI. + Skill, LXIV. + Sobriety, XXV. + Society, 87, 201, R.IV. + ------, Distinction between it and Friendship, R.IV. + Soul, 80, 188, 194. + Souls, Great, XXXI. + Sorrows, LXXVIII. + Stages of Life, 405. + Strength of mind, 19, 20, 21, 504. + Studies, why new ones are pleasing, 178. + ------, what to study, XCII. + Subtilty, 128. + Sun, 26. + + + + Talents, 468. + ------, latent, 344, XCV. + Talkativeness, 314. + Taste, 13, 109, 252, 390, 467, CXX, R.III, R.VI. + ----, good, 258, R.III. + ----, cause of diversities in, R.III. + ----, false, R.III. + Tears, 233, 373. + Temper, 47, 290, 292. + Temperament, 220, 222, 297, 346. + Times for speaking, R.V. + Timidity, 169, 480. + Titles, XXXII. + Tranquillity, 488. + Treachery, 120, 126. + Treason, 120. + Trickery, 86, 350, XCI. SEE Deceit. + Trifles, 41. + Truth, 64, LI. + Tyranny, R.I. + + + + Understanding, 89. + Untruth, 63. SEE Lying. + Unhappy, CXXV. + + + + Valour, 1, 213, 214, 215, 216. SEE Bravery and Courage. + Vanity, 137, 158, 200, 232, 388, 389, 443, 467, 483. + Variety of mind, R.IV. + Vice, 182, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 195, 218, 253, 273, + 380, 442, 445, XXIX. + Violence, 363, 369, 466, CXIII. + Victory, XII. + Virtue, 1, 25, 169, 171, 182, 186, 187, 189, 200, 218, + 253, 380, 388, 442, 445, 489, XXIX. + Virtue of Women, 1, 220, 367, XCVIII. + Vivacity, 416. + + + + Weakness, 130, 445. + Wealth, Contempt of, 301. + Weariness. SEE Ennui. + Wicked people, 284. + Wife jealous sometimes desirable, LXXXIX. + Will, 30. + Wisdom, 132, 210, 231, 323, 444, LXXXIII. + Wise Man, who is a, 203, XCI. + Wishes, 295. + Wit, 199, 340, 413, 415, 421, 502. + Wives, 364, CIV. + Woman, 131, 204, 205, 220, 241, 277, 332, 333, 334, + 340, 346, 362, 367, 368, 418, 429, 440, 466, 471, + 474, LXX, XC. + Women, Severity of, 333. + ----, Virtue of, 205, 220, XC. + ----, Power of, LXXI. + Wonder, 384. + World, 201. + ----, Judgment of, 268. + ----, Approbation of, 201. + ----, Establishment in, 56. + ----, Praise and censure of, 454. + + + + Young men, 378, 495. + Youth, 271, 341. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Reflections, by Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REFLECTIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 9105.txt or 9105.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/0/9105/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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