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REFLECTIONS;
OR,
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS.
uv
FKAXgOIS DUG DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD,
PRINCE DE MARSILLAC.
TRANSLATED FROM THE EDITIONS OF 167S 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.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON :
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, & COMPANY, Ltd.,
ST. DUNSTAN'S HOUSE, FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.G.
1898.
Uniform with this Volume, price 2s. 6d. each.
THE BAYARD SERIES.
Edited by the late J. Hain Friswell.
Comprising Pleasure Books of Literature produced in the
Choicest Style.
'• We can hardly imagine better books for boys to read or for men
to ponder over." — Times.
The Story of the Chevalier Bayard.
Joinville's St. Louis of France.
The Essays of Abraham Cowley.
Johnson's Rasselas. With Notes.
Haziitt's Round Table.
The Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, etc. By Sir Thomas
Browne, Knt.
Coleridge's Christabel, etc. With Preface by Algernon C.
Swinburne.
Lord Chesterfield's Letters, Sentences, and Maxims. With
Essay by Sainte-Beuve.
Ballad Poetry of the Affections. By Robert Buchanan.
Abdallah. By Edouard Laboullaye.
Napoleon, Table-Talk and Opinions.
Words of Wellington.
The King and the Commons. Cavalier and Puritan Songs.
Vathek. By William Beckford.
Essays in Mosaic. By Ballantyne.
My Uncle Toby ; his Story and his Friends. By P. Fitzgerald.
Reflections of Rochefoucauld.
Socrates : Memoirs for English Readers from Xenophon's Me-
morabilia. By Edw. Levien.
Prince Albert's Golden Precepts.
LONDON:
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Annex
4 7,^
PREFACE. ' ^i^
OME apology must be made for an attempt
"to translate the untranslatable." Not-
withstanding there are no less than eight
English translations of La Eochefoucauld, 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 trans
lations are taken from the old editions of the
Maxims, in which the Reflections do not appear.
Vi PREFACE
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 Rochefoucaul&'s
life-time, yet in every English edition this Maxim
appears in the body of the work.
M. Aim6 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
FBEFACE. Vii
omitted ; the second some additional Maxims
found among various of the author's manuscripts
in the Royal Library at Paris. And a Series of Re-
flections which had been previously published in a
work called " Receuil de pieces d'histoire et de litte-
rature." Paris, 1731. They were first published
with the Maxims in an edition by Gabriel Brotier.
In an edition of Eochefoucauld entitled " Reflex-
ions, ou Sentences et Maximes Morales, augment^es
de plus de deux cent nouveUes Maximes et Maximes
et Pens^es diverses suivant les copies Imprim^es 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.
The apology for the present edition of Rochefou-
* 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."
a — 2
Vijj FRSFACE.
cauld must therefore be twofold : firstly, that it is
an attempt to give the public a complete English
edition of Rochefoucauld's works as a moralisto
The body of the work comprises the Maxims
as the author finally left them, the first supple-
ment, those published in former editions, and
rejected by the author in the later ; the second, the
unpublished Maxims taken from the author's cor-
respondence and manuscripts, and the third, the
Maxims first published in 1692. While the Re-
flections, 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 Due de la Rochefoucauld the
justice to make him speak English."
INTRODUCTION.
HE 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 Vau-
venargues, each contributed to the rich stock of French
epigrams. No other country can show such a list
of brilliant writers — in England certainly we can-
not. Our most celebrated, Lord Bacon, has, by
his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their
X INTEODUCTION.
fame is, to a great measure, obscured. The only
Englishman who could have rivalled La Eochefou-
cauld or La Bruyere was the Earl of Chesterfield, and
he only could have done so from his very inti-
mate 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 Rochefou-
cauld is at once the most widely known, and the most
distinguished. Voltaire, whose opinion on the cen-
tury of Louis XIV. is entitled to the greatest M^eight,
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 FranQois Due de la Rochefoucauld."
This Frangois, the second Due de la Rochefoucauld,
Prince de Marsillac, the author of the maxims, was
one of the most illustrious members of the most illus-
trious 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 monas-
teries 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
Fulcladus." His territorial power enabled him to
INTRODUCTION. xi
adopt what was then, as is still in Scotland, a com-
mon custom, to prefix the name of his estate to hia
8m:name, and thus to create and transmit to his
descendants the illustrious surname of La Rochefou-
cauld.
From that time until that great crisis in the history
of the French aristocracy, the Revolution of 1769, 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 Francis vras cham-
berlain 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 Mar-
sillac. 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 hii
rii INTRODUCTION.
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 dis-
tinction 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 Buck-
ingham at the He de R6, 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 cam-
paigns 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 Due de la Rochequyon and Marquis
de Liancourt.
The fifth duke, banished from Court by Louis XY.^
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 Sep-
tember, 1792, when the French people were proclaim-
ing 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
INTRODUCTION. xiii
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
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 re-
covered from his wounds, and wrote his maxims dur-
ing 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 afi'airs 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 sta-
Xiv INTRODUCTION.
tion 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 at-
tached to the regiment of Auvergne. Though but
sixteen he was present, and took part in the mili-
tary operations at the siege of Cassel. The Court of
Louis XIII. was then ruled imperiously by Eichelieu.
The Duke de la E-ochefoucauld 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 MdUe. d'Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting
on the Queen (Anne of Austria), but in reality to pre-
vent the Duke learning what was passing at Paris, sent
with his father. The result of the exile was Roche-
foucauld'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 Rochefou-
cauld 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
INTRODUCTION. xv
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 him-
self 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 Yerteuil.
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
xvi INTRODUCTION.
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 under-
stand his maxims. The bitter disappointment of the
passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the deceit
and treachery then witnessed, furnish the real key to
their meaning. The cutting cynicism of the moralist
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 re-
turned 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 dis-
appointed. Mazarin relied on hope instead of grati-
tude, 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 per-
form 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
INTRODUCTION. xvil
received the same treatment, and with the Duke of
Beaufort, they formed a conspiracy against the govern*
ment. The plot was, of course, discovered and crushed.
Beaufort was arrested, the Duchesse banished. Irri-
tated and disgusted, Kochefoucauld went with the
Due 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
liis 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 re-
cover 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 Roche-
foucauld 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 Due de la Roche-
foucauld.
xviu INTRODUCTION.
On the Cardinal causing the Princes de Cond6
and Conti, ajid the Due de Langueville, 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 pre-
viously bought the post of governor. He was there
joined by the Due de Bouillon, and he and the Duke
marched to, and occupied Bordeaux. Cardinal Ma-
zarin 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 Bor-
deaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city
from destruction. The Parliament of Bordeaux com-
pelled 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 Cond6 and the Cardinal De Retz against
each other. Rochefouc;u,.Jd eagerly espoused his old
party— that of Cond^. In August, 1651, the contend-
ing 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 disap-
pointment. While occupied with party strife and
faction in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse left him.
INTRODUCTION. xix
and formed an alliance with the Due de Neniourg.
Hochefoucauld 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 endea-
voured to get Madame de Chatillon, the old mistress
of the Due de Nemours, reinstated in favour, but in
this he did not succeed. The Due 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 ma-
jority, 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 Sabl6 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
Kx INTRODUCTION.
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, Eacine, Boileau. Among his
most attached friends was Madame de La Fayette (the
authoress of the "Princess of Cleeves"), and this friend-
ship 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 Due 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 S4vign6, 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 tender-
ness, and good sense surpassed all I ever met with. I
hold his wit and accomplishments as nothing in com-
parison." 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 Sevign^, who
was 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 hia
INTROBUGTION. xxi
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 match-
less eloquence or his own philosophic calm had,
in spite of his writings, brought him into the state
Madame de S6vign6 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 17th 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 Deshouli^res, 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, pr6s de leur dernier terme,
De vaines terreurs sont pleins.
En sage que rien n'ofiense,
Livrez-vous sans resistance
A d'inevitables traits ;
Et, d'une demarche egale,
Passez cette onde fataie
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
6
«ii INTRODUCTION.
true key to -understand tlie 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 Commen-
taries 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 contri-
buted 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 Fran9ois Due de la Roche-
foucauld, 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
INTBOBUCTION. xxiii
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 mean-
time bring you so well acquainted with them as Le
Due 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 afifecta-
tion," says the bishop, " in some people of explaining
away all particular affection, and representing the
whole of 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."
h-~2
Jtxiv INTBOBUCTION.
The judgment the reader will be most inclined to
adopt will perhaps be either that of Mr. Hallam, " Con-
cise 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 appear-
ance at least of profundity ; they delight the intelli-
gent 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 consola-
tion 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. W-^ have, with a vanity
that could only exist in a 1 renchman, a description
or portrait of himself, of his own painting, and one of
those inimitable living sketches in wliich 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 lieight.
INTRODUCTION. xx^
black eyes, ymall, 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 or 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 diffi-
cult 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 of 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 out-
ward 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 my-
self 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 1
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.
xxvi INTRODUCTION.
It seems to me that my melancholy would be even
endurable and pleasant if I had none but what be-
longed 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 ex-
tremely 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 natu-
ral conformation of features, I think that even when
I have cured myseK 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 bet-
ter 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
INTR OD UCTION. xxvii
BO great a mixture of discontent that I often say what
I have to say very badly.
" The conversation of gentlemen is one of the plea-
sures 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 rail-
lery in which certain prompt and ready-witted per-
sons excel so well. I wTite 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, iu
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 pkasant 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
xxviii INTRODUCTION.
strength of my zeal for reason, I become a little un-
reasonable 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 can-
didly 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 aU the joy that could be ex-
pected, and with all reverence of mind that could be
desired.
" I have aU the passions pretty mildly, and pretty
weU under control. I am hardly ever seen in a rage,
and I never hated any one. I am not, however, in-
capable 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 com-
fort 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 ex-
pressing sympathy, and carefully avoid having any.
It is a passion that is wholly worthless in a weU-regu-
INTRODUCTION. xxix
lated mind, whicli 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 conse-
quence, to do what I had promised ; and I have made
this an inflexible law during the whole of my Ufe.
" 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.
XXX INTRODUCTION.
" I wholly approve of real loves ; they indicate great-
ness 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 as-
suredly 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 sufiiciently 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
Bay to what this irresolution is to be attributed. It
INTRODUCTION. xxxi
could not arise in him from the wealth of his imagina-
tion, 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, na-
turally, 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 you see in his private
life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner.
He always believed he had need of it ; and this, com-
bined 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
Due 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
xxxii INTBOBUCTION.
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 conclu-
sion on the different characters of the Due and the
Cardinal. She says : —
" Paul de Gondi Cardinal de Eetz possesses great
elevation of character, a certain extent of intellect, and
more of the ostentation than of the true greatness oC
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 ex-
cited 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
notliing 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
INTRODUCTION. xxxiii
knowing what he was doing, and without making use
of the opportunity to promote the interests of him-
self 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 inditference 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 extraor-
dinary 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 care-
lessness. 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 every-
thing and pleased by nothing. He avoids difficult
matters with considerable address, not allowing people
to penetrate the slight acquaintance he has with every-
thing. The retreat he has just made from the world
is th3 most brilliant and the most unreal action of his
xxxiv INTRODUCTION.
life ; it is a sacrifice lie lias made to his pride undor
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 gene-
rally but disguised vices." The edition of 1678,
the fifth, increased the number to 504. This was
the last edition revised by the author, and pub-
lished 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
Prench editions since that time have been too nu-
merous 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 transla-
tions, have appeared , one American, a Swedish, and
INTBODZrCTION. xxxv
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, Lon-
don, 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
EngUsh. London, 1694. 12mo.
iii. Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de
la Rochefoucauld. Newly made English. Lon-
don, 1706. 12mo.
iv. Moral Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
Translated from the French. With notes. Lon-
don, 1749. 12mo.
V. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld. Revised and improved. London,
1775. 8vo.
vi. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de I|
Rochefoucauld. A new edition, revised and im-
proved, by L. D. London, 1781. 8vo.
vii. The Gentleman's Library. La Rochefoucauld's
Maxims and Moral Reflections. London, 1813.
12mo.
viii. Moral Reflections, Sentences, and Maxims of
the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, newly translated
from the French ; with an introduction and notes.
London, 1850. 16mo.
xxxvi INTRODTJCTION.
ix. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de It
Rochefoucauld : with a Memoir by the Chevaliei
de Chatelain. London, 1868. 12mo.
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 simi-
lar ideas. Of ancient writers Rochefoucauld most
strongly reminds us of Tacitus ; of modern writers, Ju-
nius most strongly reminds us of Rochef oucauld. Some
examples from both are given in the notes to this trans-
lation. It is curious to see how the expressions of the
bitterest writer of English political satire to a great ex-
tent 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 Rochefou-
cauld.
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 depict-
ing 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 ^ tons: et cette erreur extreme
Est un mal que chacun se plait d'entretenir,
Notre ame, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui mdme,
INTRODUCTION. xxxvu
Taut de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui
Miroirs, de nos d^f ants les peintres l^gitime^,
Et quant an canal, c'est celni
Qui chacun salt, 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 tho-
roughly 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 pr6c6dait
de bien peu et preparait avec charme I'autre Misan-
As to the book, Mr. HaUam says :— " Among the
books ni 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
(rhe Maxims of Rochefouciuldf
EEFLECTIONS;
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS.
UR 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 Heflections. — Aime Martin. Its best answer is ar-
rived at by reversing the predicate and the subject, and
you at once foirtn 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.
a REFLECTIONS; OB,
2.— Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.
3.— Whatever discoveries have been made in the
region of self-love, there remain many unexplored ter-
ritories 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 sufiice 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. — Ai7ne
Martin.]
4. — Self love is more cunning than the most cunning
man in the world.
5. — The duration of our passions is no more de-
pendant 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.
a— 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.]
SENTENCES AND MORAL 3IAXIMS. 3
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 gene-
ration of passions ; so that the ruin of one is almost
always the foundation of another.
11.- Passions often produce their contraries : ava-
rice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to
avarice ; we are often obstinate through weakness
and daring through timidity.
12. — Whatever care we take to conceal our pas-
sions 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, &e., 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,
I — 2
4 BEFLBGTIONS; OB,
arises oftentimes from vanity, sometimes from idle-
ness, 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 pohcy of Anne of Austria.
Rochefoucauld had sacrificed all to her ; even the favour
of Cardinal Richelieu, but when she became regent she be-
stowed her favours upon thyse 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 dis-
play of our strength of mind, and in short the mo-
deration 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 Lucre-
tius, lib. ii., line i : —
** Suave mari magno turbantibus sequora 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 i8.]
21. — Those who are condemned to death affect some-
times a constancy and contempt for death which is
only the fear of facing it ; so that one may say that
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXUIS. ' 5
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 does best discover vice, but adversity does
best discover virtue." — Lord BACoy, Essays.]
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.
6 BEFL-RCTIONS ; OB,
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 impos-
sible.
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." — Cow-
PER, 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.
SENTENCES AND MOBAZ MAXIMS. 7
38. — We promise according to our hopes ; we per-
form 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.
Bacine.]
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 whim-
sical than that of Fortune.
46. — The attachment or indifference which philoso-
phers 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.
8 BEFLEGTIONS; OR,
49. — We are never so happy or so unhappy as we
suppose.
50. — Those who think they have merit persmade
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 tkat thej^ were supreme in misery ; and
certain it is when we cannot distinguish ourselves by some-
thing excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some
singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other."
— Burke, Speech on Conciliation with America.]
51. — Nothing should so much diminish the satisfac-
tion 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 for-
tunes, 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 distinc-
tion 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
fcnd ignorance." — Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Chap. 15.]
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 9
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 pos-
sess it, and we refuse them om- 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 ot 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 ; wliat we usually see is only an ai-fcfu]
dissimulation to win the confidence of others.
63.- -The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambi-
tion to render our words credible and weighty, and
to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.
lO REFLECTIONS; OB,
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."
Appljdng 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 deli-
cate wish to possess what we love — 2jIus many
mysteries.
["Love is the love of one singularity with desire to be
singularly beloved." — Hobbes.]
69. — If there is a pure love, exempt from the mix-
ture of our other passions, it is that which is concealed
at the bottom of the heart and of which even our-
selves are ignorant.
70. — There is no disguise which can long hide love
where it exists, nor feign it where it does not.
SENTENCi:S JJVD MORAL MAXI3IS. ii
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."
Don Juan, 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 per-
petual motion ; both cease to live so soon as they cease
to hope, or to fear.
[So Lord Byron 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 thon 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."]
Childe Harold, 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
13 BEFLECTIONS ; OB,
80. — What renders us so changeable in our friend-
ship is, that it is diflficult to know the <|ualities 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.
["Thusterminated 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 ungratefvil to her too
ambitious friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of
their resentment. * I wish, ' said she, ' it were always
night, because dayUght shows me so many who have
betrayed me.'" — Meinoires de Madavie de Motteville, Tom.
IV., p. 6o. Another proof that although these maxims
are in some cases of universal application, they were hased
entirely on the experience of the age in which the author
Hved.]
83. — What men term friendship is merely a partner-
ship 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 liearts
away for the good we wish to do, but for that we ex^
pect to receive.
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 13
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 atithority
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 j udgment.
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 impossi-
bility 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 that 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 mad-
ness.— See ^lian, 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.
14 BEFLIJCTIONS ; OB,
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 pene-
trates to the bottom of matters ; it remarks all that
can be remarked, and perceives what appears imper-
ceptible. Therefore we must agree that it is the ex-
tent 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 com-
plete 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 **AU foUy
comes from the heart. " — Aime Martin. But Bonhome, in his
JJArt de Penser, says "Pliisienrs diraient en periode quarre
que quelques retiexions que fasse I'esprit et quelques resolu-
tions qu'il prenne pour corriger ses travers le premier sen-
timent du coeur renverse tous ses projets. Mais il n'appar-
tient qu'a M. de la Rochefoucauld de dire tout en un mot
que I'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur."]
103. — Those who know their minds do not neces-
sarily know their hearts.
SENTIENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 15
104. — Men and things have each their proper per-
spective ; 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 under-
stands, 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. — Tka 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.
£6 BBFLJECTI0N8 ; OR,
1 16. — NotMng is less sincere tlian 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 myseh 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 att%4ce on
the terms usually prescribed to us was little better than
tamely to aflford another the occasion of raising himself a
character from our defects." — Lord SnArTESBURY, Charac-
teristics, 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, Thoughts on tJie Cause of the P^-eseni
Discontents.']
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 17
120. — We often act treacherously more from weari-
ness 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 occa-
sion 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 them-
selves open to attack in another.
[" With that low cunning which in fools suppUes,
And amply, too, the place of being wise."
Churchill, Rosdad, 117.]
126. — Cunning and treachery are the offspring of
incapacity.
127. — The true way to be deceived is to think one-
self 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 them-
selves ap to love is to love.
[ " Faciunt graviora coactse
Imperio sexus minimumque Hbidine peccant.**
Juvenal, Sat. vi., 134,!
2
i8 REFLECTIONS; OB,
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 our-
selves than we do from others.
136^ — There are some who never would have loved
if they never had heard it spoken of.
X37. — 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," —
Hall AM, 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 wander-
ing 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 cau
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.]
SENTENCES AND MOBAL MAXIMS. 19
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 Httle said."
Churchill, Rosciad, 550.
" Men who are unequal to the labour of discussing an ar-
gument 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 re-
ward of merit, the other bestows it to show his im-
partiality 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 re-
proach.
[** Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer. "
Pop«.]
2—2
20 BEFLEOTIONS; OB,
149 — The refusal of praise is only the wish to be
praised twice.
LThe 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 serviha fingebant securi de fragihtate cre-
lentis. Tacit. Arm, 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
m 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.
15-9. — It is not enough to have great qualities, wo
should also have tlie management of them.
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 21
160. — However brilliant an action it should not be
esteemed ^eat 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 advan-
tage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation
than real brilliancy.
163. — Numberless arts appear foolish whose secre
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.
22 BEFLUCTIONS ; OS,
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 the iUs we have
Than fly to others that we know not of."]
175. — Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy
which causes our heart to attach itself to all the quali-
ties 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 otUJ
friends to justify our own by anticipation.
SENTENCES AND 3I0RAL MAXIMS. 23
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 ahos industria ita hunc ignavia protulerat ad famam,
nabebaturque non ganeo et profligator sed erudito kixu.
—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 infec-
tiou than of falling ill when we are well.
94 REFLECTIONS; OR,
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 cou'-^se 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 abandon-
ing 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
testemnon conscientiam."]
197. — There are men of whom we can never believe
evil without having seen it. Yet there are very few
ir //horn 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 Cond4 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. Cond^ and
7
SENTENCES AND MOBAL MAXIMS. 35
Turenne were after their campaign witli the Imperialists
at the height of their fame. It proves the truth of the
remark of Tacitus, "Popuhis neminem sine eemulo sinit." —
Ta.c. 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 bur-
den they add to their beauty.
205.— Virtue in woman is often the love of reputa-
tion 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 ho
thinks.
a6 BSFLECTIONS; OR,
210. — In growing old we become more foolisli — and
more wise.
211. — There are people who are like farces, which
are praised but for a time (however foolish and dis-
tasteful 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 every day,
(Eight to the week), for sixpence pay. "
Hudihras, Part 11. , 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
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXUIS. 27
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 conceal-
ing 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.]
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 sur-
prising 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 Machia-
vel, 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 honour, few wish to do so more than
sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design
for which they expose themselves succeed.
88 REFLECTIONS; OB,
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 instruc-
tion ?" — 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 begin-
ning to fail.
223. — Gratitude is as the good faith of merchants :
it holds commerce together ; and we do not pay be-
cause 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 can-
not thereby Hatter themselves that they are grateful.
225. — What makes false reckoning, as regards gra-
titude, 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.l
226.— Too great a hurry to discharge of an obliga-
tion 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 misera-
ble, for the happy impute all their success to prudence ntid
merit." — Swirx, Thouglitu on Wirlons ^ 'inject^.]
si:ntjenc:es and moral maxims. 29
228. — Pnde 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 hypo-
crisy. 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 im-
poses on all the world, that is the grief of those who
aspire to the glory of a noble and immortal sorrrw.
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 show-
ing 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
30 BEFZECTIONS; OB,
to bo bewept, in fact one weeps to avoid the disgrace
of not weeping !
["In grief the pleasure is still uppermost, and the afflic-
tion 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.]
234.— It is more often from pride than from igno-
rance 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 tender-
ness 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 de-
licate 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 gene-
rally '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.
SEI^^TENCES AND 3I0RAZ MAXUIS. 31
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." —
EoussEAU, 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 con-
ceal 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 "m-
bition, that despises small to run after greater inte-
rest.
247.— The fidelity of most men is merely an inven-
tion 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 m 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 thac
stould be, not all that could be said-
33 REFLECTIONS; OB,
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 2Sth 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 aU sorts of virtues and
vices.
254. — Humility is often a feigned submission which
we employ to supplant others. It is one of the de-
vices 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 busi-
ness."— 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."
Sou THEY, Devil's Walk J]
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 ap-
pearance to seem what we wish to be. Tlius 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.
" Life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the
hero should preserve his consistency to the last." — Junius.]
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 33
257.-— Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body
invented to conceal the want of mind.
[" Gravity is the very essence of imposture." — Shaftes-
bury, 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 know-
ledge than a man was worth, and that with all its preten-
sions 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, Tristravt
Shandy, vol. i., chap, ii.]
258. — Good taste arises more from judgment than
wit.
259. — The pleasure of love is in loving, we are hap-
pier 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 in-
spire 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,
[" Grrief for the calamity of another is pity, and ariseth
^from the imagination that a like calamity may befal him-
self, and therefore is called compassion." — Hobbes' Levia-
than.]
3
34
EJEFLECTIONS ; OB,
265. — A narrow mind begets obstinacy, and we do
not easily believe what we cannot see.
[** Stiif in opinion, always in the wrong."
Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel]
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 ; im-
perceptibly 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 in-
telligence, 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."— Don Jtjan.
[n the ist 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.
si:ntenc:es and moral maxims. 35
273. — There are persons of whom the world approvea
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 in-
creases 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,
Eersuades them that they have real passion when they
ave 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."
I)on 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.
3—2
36 REFLECTIONS; OR,
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 mode-
rate 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 ima-
gination presents, and hinders us from at first discern-
ing 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 simpHcitatis ac modestiaB imagine studiiim
litterarum et amorem carminum simulabat quo velaret
animuui et fratris semulationi subduceretur. — Tacitus,
Ann. iv.]
290. — There are as many errors of temper as of
mind.
8Ti:NT:ENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 37
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 dis-
agreeable.
293. — Moderation cannot claim the merit of op-
posing 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 aifect 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 favours 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 ingrati-
tude for great favours.
300. — There are follies as catching as infections.
301. — Many people despise, but few know how to
bestow wealth.
38 BEFLJECTIONS ; OB,
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 am-
bition of the great ; to console ordinary people for
their small fortune and equally small ability.
309. — There are persons fated to be fools, who com-
mit foUies 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 foUy has never ap-
peared, 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 recoUect how often we have told
it to the same person 1
[** Old men who yet retain the memory of things past,
and forget how often they have told them, are most tedioua
companions." Montaigne, Work i. c. 9.]
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS.
37
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 dis-
trust we have of them, but that we have of our-
316. — Weak persons cannot be sincere.
317. — 'Tis a small misfortune to oblige an ungrate-
ful 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 pos-
sess 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 neaivar loving those who hate us, than
those who love us more than we desire.
322. — Th«>se only are despicable who fear to be
323.— Our wisdom is no less at the mercy of Fortune
than our goods.
324. — There is more self-love than love in jealousy.
40 RJSFLECTIONS ; OR,
325. — We often comfort ourselves by the weakness
of evils, for which reason has not the strength to con-
sole us.
326. — Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour
itself.
["No," says a commentator, "Ridicule may do harm,
hut it cannot dishonour ; it is vice which confers dis-
honour."]
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.
[" And when I tell him he hates flattery,
He says he does, being then most flattered."
Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar.']
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,
Amoves, 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.
8ENTENC:ES and moral maxims. 41
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 oan neither per-
ceive 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 pro-
portion 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 hfe that had it, and who reasoned and acted conse-
quentially 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 quali-
ties 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.
42 REFLECTIONS ; OR,
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 can-
not forgive his supposLag me capable of the gross foUy
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.
8Ent:encjs8 and moral maxims. 43
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 om'selves.
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 con-
fidence, 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 sin-
cere with us than with others.
367. — There are few virtuous women who are not
tired of their part.
1^ REFLECTIONS; OB,
["Every woman is at heart a rake." — Pope. Moral
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 ceasej"
372. — Most young people think they are natural
when they are only boorish and rude.
373.— Some tears after having deceived others de-
ceive 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, flirta-
tion 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.
set^tenc:e8 and moral maxims.
45
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 (houts-rim£s) where to each one puts
what construction he pleases.
[The bouts-rimes was a literary game popular in the 17th
and 1 8th 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 bur-
lesque 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 /."]
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 unsupport*
able 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.
46 REFLECTIONS; OB,
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.
["Singuh decipere ac decipi possunt, nemo onmes,
omnes neminem fefellerunt." — Pliny.]
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 be-
lieving 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 com-
monly 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.
SEJSTENCES AND MOBAL MAXIMS. 47
401. — Kcink 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 stem 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.
48 BEFLEGTIONS; OB,
410. — The greatest effort of friendship is not to show
our faults to a friend, but to show him his own.
411. — Y^Q 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 cha-
racter.
["This is hardly a period at which the most irregular
character may not be redeemed. The mistakes of one slq
find a retreat in patriotism, those of the other in devotion."
— Junius, Letter to the K'mg.]
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 hterature ; 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 grey hairs become the fool and jester." —
Shakespeare.
[" 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 ridi-
culous, should not talk of love as a matter wherein
they can have any interest.
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 49
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 mis
fortune 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.]
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, how-
ever 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, Bes Jugements.]
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 sur-
vive for the evils, though no longer for the pleasures.
4
50 BEFLECTIONS; OB,
[** The youth of friendship is better than its old age." —
Hazlitt*s Characteristics, 229.]
431. — Nothing prevents our bemg 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 alienee virtuti iavidet 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 friend-
ship, 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."
jVIilton. 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.
8ENTUNCi:8 AND MOBAL MAXIMS. 51
["Those who have experienced a great passion neglect
friendship, and those who have united themselves to friend-
ship have nought to do with love." — LaBruyere. DuC<£U7'.]
441. — As in friendship so in love, we are often hap-
pier 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 even
make the better fool.
Clown. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity for the
better increasing your folly." — Shakespeare, Twelfth
Night.l
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, b. 4, c. ii.]
448. — A well-trained mind has less difficulty in sub-
mitting 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.
4—2
^ REFLECTIONS; OB,
450. — Our pride is often increased by what we
retrench from our other faults.
["The loss of sensual pleasures was supplied and com-
pensated by spiritual pride." — Gibbon. Decline and Fall,
chap. XV.]
451.— No fools so wearisome as those who have some
wdt,
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, v. 2. ]
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.
SENTJENOES AND MOBAJL MAXIMS. 53
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 aU the others they love love.
["In her first passion woman loves her lover,
In all her others what she loves is love."
Don Juan, Canto iii., stanza 3.
** We truly love once, the first time ; the subsequent pas-
sions are more or less involuntary." La Bruyere : Du Coeur.]
472. — Pride as the other passions has its follies. We
54 BBFLBCTI0N8; OB,
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 friend-
ship."— 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 happi-
ness 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.
SENTENCIJS AND 3I0RAL MAXIMS. 55
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 liis
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
iiot find a quieter seat while they remain there." — Le
BrUYERE : Du C(EU7\]
491. — Extreme avarice is nearly always mistaken,
there is no passion which is oftener further away from
S6 EIEFLECTIONS ; OR,
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 greedi-
ness, the desire and avarice — passions which probably have
a common origin, but produce very 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 nothiag, 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 de-
generates into impertinence.
496. — Quarrels would not last long if the fault was
only on one side.
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. S7
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 hoilowness of so
many apparent virtues, it is but just to say something
on the hoilowness of the contempt for death. I allude
to that contempt of death which the heathen boasted
they derived from their unaided understanding, with-
out 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
58 REFLECTIONS; OB,
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 dif-
ferent way than the one they have selected. The differ-
ence 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 surround-
ings, 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 con-
stancy 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 suflice, 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 indif-
ference. 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 depend-
ent 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
SENTENCES AND 3I0RAL MAXIMS. 59
a distance, or that our feelings, wliich 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 leath from his
sight ; in the peasant it is but the result of his limited
vision that hides from him the extent of the evil, and
leaves him free to reflect on other things.
^E
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Mi
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 seK. It makes men self -worshippers, and if for-
tune 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 skiKul 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 thou-
sand 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
MORAL MAXIMS. 61
which it is sated. But this thick darkness wMch con-
ceals it from itself does not hinder it from seeing that
perfectly which is out of itseK ; and in this it re-
sembles our eyes which behold all, and yet cannot see
their own forms. In fact, in great concerns and im-
portant matters when the violence of its desires sum-
mons 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 misfor-
tunes 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 con-
clude 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 some-
times 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 eager-
ness 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
6* BEFLECTIONSj OB,
frivolities. It finds all its pleasure in tlie 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-esta-
blishes 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 con-
tinuous 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 dififerent degrees of the
heat or coldness of the blood. (1665, No. 13.)
III. — Moderation in good fortune is but apprehen-
sion 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 himseli. (1665, No. 33.)
SENTENCES AND IIOBAL MAXIMS. 63
VL— Pride, as if tired of its artifices and its difi'erent
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. (1C65,
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 seH-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.)
64 JREFLBCTIONS ; OR,
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 afl&rmed 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 seK-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 femfl-le 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 disadvan-
tageous 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
SENTHIfOSS JJN'D MORAL MAXIMS. 6^
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 self-
love, he whitens the blackest actions of his mistress,
and takes from her all crime to lay it on himself.
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. 9 J.)
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 per-
ceive the growing coolness of that of our friends.
(1666, No. 97.)
XXIIL — The most wise maybe so in indifferent and
ordinary matters, but they are seldom so in their
most serious affairs. (1665, No. 132.)
6
66 REFLECTIONS; OB,
XXIV.— The most subtle folly grows out of the most
subtle wisdom. (1665, No. 134.)
XXV.— Sobriety is the love of health, or an in-
capacity 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 inno-
cent, which arises from warmth of complexion, tem-
perament, 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 Bums —
" The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
A man's a man for a' that. '
Also Farquhar and other parallel passages pointed out ia
Famihar Words.]
XXXIII.— Natural ferocity makes fewer people
cruel than self-love. (1665, No. 174.)
si}N't:ences and moral maxuis. 67
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 pro-
vinces is called a conquest. (1665, No. 192.)
XXXVI.— One never finds in man good or evil in
excess. (1665, No. 201.)
XXXVII. — Those who are incapable of committing
freat crimes do not easily suspect others. (1665,
To. 508.)
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 regu-
lated order of all time by Providence, which makes
everything follow in due rank and fall into its de-
stined course. (1665, No. 225.)
XL. — Intrepidity should sustain the heart in con-
spiracies in place of valour which alone furnishes all
the firmness which is necessary for the perils of war.
(1665, No. 23].)
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
*' Some crimes may be exciised by their brilliancy, such
as those of Jael, of Deborah, of Brutus, and of Charlotte
Co rday— further than this the maxim is satire.
5—2
68 BEFLECTIONS; OB,
masters, since all those wlio compose an army, in
aiming at their own rise and glory, produce a good
so great and general. (1666, 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 grati-
tude 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 ac-
cording to their merits, but according to our wants,
and the opinion with which we believed we had im-
pressed them of our worth. (1665, No. 248.)
XL VI. — It is very hard to separate the general
goodness spread all over the world from great clever-
ness. (1665, No. 262.)
XLVII. — For us to be always good, others should
beheve 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. 268.)
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 per-
fection of beauty, for of whatever stature a thing may
be, it cannot be beautiful and perfect unless it be
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 69
truly that she should be, and possess truly all that she
should have. (1665, No. 260.)
[Beauty is truth, truth beauty.]
LII. — There are fine things which are more bril-
liant 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 are concealed ; if we consider her power
attentively we shall find that in all encounters she
makes herself mistress of our sentiments, our in-
terests, 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 beati-
tude 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.)
70 BEFLECTI0N8.
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 them-
selves 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. (1665, No.
372.)
IjXV. — We ought to console ourselves for our faults
when we have strength enough to own them. (1665,
No. 375.)
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SECOND SUPPLEMENT.
REFLECTIONS,
EXTRACTED FROM
MS. LETTERS IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY*
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 en-
gaged 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.)
* A la Bihliotheque du Boi, it is difficult at present
(June 1 871) to assign a name to the magnificent collection
of books in Paris, the property of the nation.
73 BEFLECTTONS ; OB,
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.*)
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 pro-
vince 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 com-
mon to find people of the latter class, very rare to
find those of the former. (Letter to M. Esjwit, 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
* The reader will recognise in these extracts portions of the
Maxims previously given, sometimes the author has care-
fully polished them ; at other times the words are identical.
Our numbers will indicate where they are to be found in
the foregoing collection.
SENTIENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 73
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.JoL 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 Sahld^
fol. 161, Max. 504.)
[In the maxim cited the author relates how a footman
about to be broken on the wheel danced on the scaflFold.
He seems to think that in his day the life of such servants
was so miserable that their merriment was very doubtful.]
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THIRD SUPPLEMENT.
[The fifty following Maxims are taken from the Sixth
Edition of the Pensees de La Rochefoucauld, published
by Claude Bar bin, 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 bappy.
LXXVIII.— True penitential sorrows (mortifica-
tions) 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.
LXXXL— We trouble ourselves less to become
happy, than to make others believe we are so.
LXXXII.— It is more easv to extinguish the first
desire than to satisfy those wnich follow.
LXXXIII.— Wisdom is to the soul what health is to
the body.
MORAL MAXIMS. 75
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 aU
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 of love !
XCI. — The wise man finds it better not to enter
the encounter than to conquer.
[Somewliat similar to Goldsmith's sage —
** Who quits the world where strong temptations try,
And since 'tis hard to conquer, learns to fly."]
XCII. — It is more necessary to study men than
books.
[** The proper study of mankind is man." — Pope.]
XOIII. — 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.
(Repetition of Maxim 342. j
76 MJEFLECTIONS ; OB,
XCV. — The greater part of men have qualities
whicli, like those of plants, are discovered by chance.
(Repetition 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 con-
stant, is not much better than an inconstancy. (See
Maxims 369, 381.;
CI. — There are those who avoid our jealousy, of
whom we ought to be jealous. (See Maxim 359.;
OIL — Jealousy is always born with love, but does
not always die with it. (See Maxim 361.;
cm. — When we love too much it is diflBcult 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 cur-
sives. (See Maxim 345.;
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 77
CYI. — We find very few people of good sense, ex-
cept those wlio are of our own opinion. (See Maxim
347.;
CVII. — We commonly praise the good hearts of
those who admire us. (See Maxim 356. J
CVIII. — Man only blames himself in order that he
may be praised.
CIX. — Little minds are wounded by the smallest
things. (See Maxim 357.;
ex.— 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 them-
selves more clever than we are. (See Maxim 350.;
CXII. — We are always bored by those whom we
bore. (See Maxim 352. ;
CXIIT. — The harm that others do us is often less
than that we do ourselves. (See Maxim 363.;
CXIV. — It is never more difiicult to speak well
than when we are ashamed of being silent.
GXV. — 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. j
CXVII. — We give advice, but we cannot give the
wisdom to profit by it. (See Maxim 378. )
CXVIII. — When our merit declines, our taste de-
clines also. (See Maxim 379.)
78 BUFZECTIONS.
CXIX. — Fortune discovers our vices and our \4r
tues, 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 diflficult 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 plejises nobody.
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REFLECTIONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS,
BY THE
DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
L On Confidence.
HOUGH 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 dis-
like to deception, a wish to compensate our faults ana
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 acauaintance and
8o BEFLBCTIONS; OB,
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 inclina-
tion.
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 our-
selves 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 unre-
SEiyTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 81
eervedly 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 words 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 irre-
parable.
II. On DiffepvExce of Character.
Althoug all the qualities of mind may be united in
a great genius, yet there are some wliich are special
6
82 BBFLTICTIONS ; OR,
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 compre-
hends 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 dis-
agreeable.
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 with-
out 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.
Yoting persons have usually a cheerful and satirical
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 83
turn, untempered by seriousness, thus often maknig
themselves disagreeable.
No part is easier to play than that ot 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 dan-
gerous 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 with-
out 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 under-
stands how to hide the praise it gives under the ap-
pearance of blame, and shows the good while feigning
a wish to hide it.
An acute mind and a cunning mind are very dis-
similar. The first always pleases ; it is unfettered, it
perceives the most delicate and sees the most impercep-
tible matters. A cunning spirit never goes straight, it
endeavours to secure its object by bye ways and short
cuts. This conduct is soon found out, it always gives
rise to distrust and never reaches greatness.
6—2
84 REFLECTIONS; OR,
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, accu-
rate.
Gentleness of mind is an easy and accommodating
manner which always pleases when not insipid.
A mind full of details devotes itself to the manage-
ment 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
Avhich 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 nmch wit, and one need not
be a fool even with very little wit.
To have much mind is a doubtful expression. It
SENTENCES AND MOBAJL MAXIMS. 85
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 Tastb.
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
86 BEFLECTIONS; Olt,
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 can-y 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 aifected with pleasure or weari-
ness 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 sourceof 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 stand-
ard of taste.
In all the diversities ol taste that we discern, it is
SENTJEJSrCES AND MOBAL MAXIMS. 87
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 seK-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 per-
ceive what we have seen and heard.
IV. On Society.
In speaking of society my plan is not to speak of
friendship, for, though they nave 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
lastinsr.
88 BEFLECTIONS; OR,
Everyone seeks to find his pleasure and his advan-
tage 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 con-
sideration which ought to exist between persons who
have to live together.
It sometimes happens that persons opposite in tem-
per 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 con-
duct show that they, too, have need to be guided and
led by reason, and accommodate themselves as far as
possible to the feelings 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 himseK 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 occa-
SENTENCES AND MOHAL MAXIMS. 89
sional 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 mth 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
90 REFLECTIONS i OR,
that many persons should have the same interests,
it is yet as necessary for it that their interests should
not be diflFerent.
We should aoiticipate 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 reallv is.
SENTENCES AND MOEAIj MAXIMS. gx
V. On Conversation.
The reason why so few persons are agreeable in con-
versation 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
w^ith them.
To please others we should talk on subjects they
like and that interest them, avoid disputes upon in-
different 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 answ^er 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 pre-
sumption 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,
92 BUFLECTI0N8; OR,
fio as to join in the conversation of those who have
more than ourselves without hurting by this prefer-
ence the wishes or interests of others.
Then we should modestly use all the modes above-
mentioned 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 f-ir-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, stop-
ping 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
SENTENCES AND MOBAL MAXIMS. 93
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 dis-
agreeable, 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 dififerent 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
oui qualities are uncertain and confused, so, too, are
94 BEFLECTIONS; OB,
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
lirmly, 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 preju-
dice what deserves to be approved, follow what
deserves to be followed, and tal^e 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,
SENTENCES AND MOBAZ MAXIMS. 95
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 im-
portance 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 man-
96 EEFLECTI0N8; OR,
ner 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 finalities should always have a certain agree-
ment and a certain union with our own natural
qualities, which they imperceptibly extend and in-
crease. 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 con-
ditions 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
SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS. 97
not united and amalgamated with that which nature
has given us. We should unite and blend them to-
gether, 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 pro-
menade ; 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 dis-
pleasing ; 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 senti-
ments that coincide with our condition and our
appearance, and displease in the proportion they are
removed from that point.
7
INDEX.
The letter R preceding a reference refers to the Befections,
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.
Acknowledgments, 225.
Actions, I, 7, 57, 58, 160, 161, 382, 409, CXX.
Actors, 256.
Admiration, 178, 294, 474.
Adroitness of mind, R. 2.
Adversity, 25.
of Friends, XV.
Advice, no, 116, 283, 378, CXVII.
Affairs, 453, R 2.
Affectation, 134, 493.
Affections, 232.
Afflictions, 233, 355, 362, 493, XCVII, XV.
Age, 222, 405, LXXIII. See Old Age.
Agreeableness, 255, R. 5.
Agreement, 240.
Air, 399, 495, R. 7.
Of a Citizen, 393.
Ambition, 24, 91, 246, 293, 49a
Anger, XXX.
INDBX. gg
Application, 41, 243.
Appearances, 64, 166, 199, 256, 302, 431, 457, E. 7.
-J , Conformity of Manners with, E,. 7.
Applause, 272.
Approbation, 51, 280.
Artifices, 117, 124, 125, 126, E. 2.
Astonishment, 384.
Avarice, 167, 491, 492.
Ballads, 211.
Beauty, 240, 474, 497, LI.
of the Mind, R. 2.
Bel esprit defined, K.. 2.
Benefits, 14, 298, 299, 301, CXXIL
Benefactors, 96, 317, CXXII.
Blame, CVIII.^
Blindness, XIX.
Boasting, 141, 307.
Boredom, 141, 304, 352. See Ennui,
Bouts rimes, 382, CXX.
Bravery, i, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 365,
504. See Courage and Valour.
Brilliancy of Mind, E.. 2.
Brilliant things, LI I.
Capacity, 375.
Caprice, 45.
Chance, 57, 344, XCV. See Fortune.
Character, LVI, E. 2.
Chastity, i. See Virtue of Women.
Cheating, 114, 127.
Circumstances, 59, 470.
Civility, 260.
Clemency, 15, 16.
Cleverness, 162, 269, 245, 399.
Coarseness, 372.
Comedy, 211, E. 3.
Compassion, 463. See Pity.
Complaisance, 481, E. 4.
Conduct, 163, 227, 378, CXVIl.
Confidants, whom we make, E. i.
Confidence, 239, 365, 475, XLIX, R. i, R. 4.
7-2
loo INDEX.
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, K 5.
Copies, 133.
Coquetry, 241. iS'fie Flirtation.
Country Manner, 393.
Accent, 342.
Courage, i, 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 aUft
Self-Deceit.
Deception, CXXI.
Decency, 447.
Defects, 31, 90, 493, LXXII. See Fiulte.
Delicacy, 128, R. 2.
Dependency, result of Confidence, R. I.
Designs, 160, 161.
Desires, 439, 469, LXXXII, LXXXV.
Despicable Persons, 322.
Detail, Mind given to, R. 2.
Details, 41, 106.
Devotion, 427.
Devotees, 427.
Devout, LXXVI.
Differences, 135.
Dignities, E 7
INDEX, loi
Discretion, R. 5,
Disguise, 119, 246, 282.
Disgrace, 235, 412.
Dishonour, 326, LXIX.
Distrust, 84, 86, 335.
Divination, 425.
Doubt, 348.
Docility, E, 4.
Dupes, k"], 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, E. 2.
Em^, 27, 28, 280, 281, 328, 376, 433, 476, 486,
Epithets assigned to the Mind, E.. 2.
Esteem, 296.
Establish, 56, 280.
Evils, 121, 197, 269, 454, 464, XCIII.
Example, 230.
Exchange of secrets, E. i.
Experience, 405.
Expedients, 287.
Expression, refined, R. 5.
Faculties of the Mind, 174.
Failings, 397 403.
Falseness, E 6.
, disguised, 282.
, kinds of, E. 6
Familiarity, E. 4.
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.
I02 INDEJ^.
Ferocity, XXXIII.
Fickleness, 179, 181, 498.
Fidelity, 247.
, hardest test of, R. i.
in love, 331, 381, C.
Figure and air, R. 7.
Firmness, 19, 479.
Flattery, 123, 144, 152, 198, 320, 329.
Flirts, 406, 4 1 8.
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, 2IO, 309, 318, 357, 414, 451, 456,
, old, 444.
, witty, 451, 456.
Force of Mind, 30, 42, 44, 237,
Forgetfulness, XXVI.
Forgiveness, 330.
Fortitude, 19. See Bravery.
Fortune, i, 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, 44"-'. 44'. 473i
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. 2.
Gentleness, R. 6,
Ghosts, 76.
Gifts of the mind, R. 2.
INDEX. 103
Glory, 157, 198, 221, 268.
Good, 121, 185, 229, 238, 303, XCIII.
, how to be, XLVil.
Goodness, 237, 275, 284, XLVJ.
Good grace, 67, E,. 7.
Good man, who is a, 206.
Good nature, 481.
Good qualities, 29, 90, 337, 365, 397, 462.
Good sense, 67, 347, CVI.
Good taste, 258.
, rarity of, R. 3.
, 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, LXXXL
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, LXXYI, 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.
I04 INBTsT.
Illusions, 123.
Imagination, 478,
Imitation, 230, XLIV, E,. 5
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.
lealousy, 28, 32, 324, 336, 359, 361, 446, 503. CII
Toy, 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.
INDEX. ros
Liberality, 167, 263.
Liberty in Society, R. 4,
Limits to Confidence, E,. 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, cm, cxxi.
defined, 68,
, Coldness in, LX.
, Effect of absence on, 276.
akin to Hate, iii.
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, XCVXL
Lunatic, 353.
Luxury, LIV.
Lying, 63.
Madmen, 353, 414.
Malady, LVII.
Magistrates, R. 6.
Magnanimity, 248, LIII.
defined, 285
Malice, 483.
Manners, E,. 7.
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, CXVIIL
Mind, loi, 103, 261;, 357, 448, d82, CIX.
io6 INDEX.
Mind, Capacities of, K.. 2.
Miserabie, 49.
Misfortunes, 19, 24, 174, 325.
of Friends, XV.
of Enemies, 463.
Mistaken people, 386.
Mistrust, 86.
Mockery, R. 2.
Moderation, 17, 18, 293, 308, III, IV.
Money, Man compared to, XXXll.
Motives, 409.
Names, Great, 94.
Natural goodness, 275.
Natural, to be, 431.
— - — — , always pleasing, R. 7.
Nature, 53, 153, 189, 365, 404.
Negotiations, 278.
Novelty in study, 1 78.
in love, 274.
in friendship, 426.
Obligations, 299, 3 1 7, 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. i.
Opinions, 13, 234, CXXIII, E. 5.
Opinionatedness, R. 5.
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, VIU.
Penetration, 377, 425, CXVI.
Perfection, R. 2.
Perseverance, 177.
Perspective, 104.
Persuasion, 8.
Philosophers, 46, S4» 504, XXI.
INBBX. 107
Philosophy, 22.
— of a Footfcnan, 504, LXXV.
Pity, 264.
Pleasing, 413, CXXV.
, Mode of, XLVIII, R. 5.
, Mind a, K. 2.
Point of View, R. 4.
Politeness, 372, E,. 5.
Politeness of Mind, 99.
Praise, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 272, 356,
432, XXVII, evil.
Preoccupation, 92, E. 3.
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, K. 2.
Professions, 256.
Promises, 38
Proportion, E.. 6.
Propriety, 447.
in Women, XXXIV.
Prosperity, 25.
Providence, XXXIX.
Prudence, 65, LXXXVIII, R. i.
Qualities, 29, 162, 397, 470, 498, R. 6, R. 7
, Bad, 468.
. , Good, 88, 337, 462.
, Great, 159, 433.
, of Mind, classified, R. 20.
Quarrels, 496.
Quoting oneself, R. 5.
Raillery, R 2, R. 4.
Rank, 401.
Reason, 42, 105, 325, 365, 467, 469, XX, R. 6.
Recollection in Memory.
Reconciliation, 82.
Refinement, R. 2.
Regret, 355.
io8 INDEX.
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. 5,
Rusticity, 393.
Satire, 483, R. 2, R. 4,
Sciences, R. 6.
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. 6.
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, LXL
Skill, LXIV.
Sobriety, XXV.
Society, 87, 201, R. 4.
, Distinction between it and Friendship, R. IV.
Soul, 80, 188, 194.
Souls, Great, XXXI.
INDEX. 109
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, 46S.
, latent, 344, XCV.
Talkativeness, 314. t> x» it
Taste, 13, 109, 252, 390, 467, OXX, R. 3, R. 0,
, good, 258, R. 3.
, cause of diversities in, R. 3.
, false, R. 3.
Tears, 233, 373.
Temper, 47, 290, 292,
Temperament, 220, 222, 297, 346.
Times for speaking, R. 5.
Timidity, 169, 480.
Titles, XXXII.
Tranquillity, 488.
Treachery, 120, 126.
Treason, 120.
Trickery, 86, 350, CXI. See Deceit
Trifl'is, 41.
Truth, 64, LI.
Tyranny, R. 1.
Understanding, 89.
Untruth, 63. See Lying.
Unhappy, CXXV.
Valour, I, 213, 214, 215, 216. See Bravery and Courage.
Vanity, 137, 158, 200, 232, 388, 389, 443, 467, 483-
Variety of mind, R. 4.
Vice, 182, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, I95» 218, 253, 273,
380, 442, 445, XXIX
Violence, 363, 369, 466. CXIII.
Victory, XII.
Virtue, i, 25, 169, 171, 182, 186, 187, 189, 200, 218,
253> 380, 388. 442, 445, 489, XXIX.
HO INDEX.
Virtue of Women, a, 220, 367, XCVIIl.
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, 244, 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. 47 i»
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.
THB END.
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