Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
REFLECTIONS; OR SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS
By Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac
Translated from the Editions of 1678 and 1827 with introduction, notes,
and some account of the author and his times.
By J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B and J. Hain Friswell
Simpson Low, Son, and Marston, 188, Fleet Street.
1871.
{TRANSCRIBERS NOTES: spelling variants are preserved (e.g. labour
instead of labor, criticise instead of criticize, etc.); the
translators' comments are in square brackets [...] as they are in the
text; footnotes are indicated by * and appear immediately following the
passage containing the note (in the text they appear at the bottom of
the page); and, finally, corrections and addenda are in curly brackets
{...}.}
ROCHEFOUCAULD
"As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew From Nature--I believe them true. They
argue no corrupted mind In him; the fault is in mankind."--Swift.
"Les Maximes de la Rochefoucauld sont des proverbs des gens
d'esprit."--Montesquieu.
"Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations."--Sir J. Mackintosh.
"Translators should not work alone; for good Et Propria Verba do not
always occur to one mind."--Luther's Table Talk, iii.
CONTENTS
Preface (translator's)
Introduction (translator's)
Reflections and Moral Maxims
First Supplement
Second Supplement
Third Supplement
Reflections on Various Subjects
Index
Preface.
{Translators'}
Some apology must be made for an attempt "to translate the
untranslatable." Notwithstanding there are no less than eight English
translations of La Rochefoucauld, hardly any are readable, none are free
from faults, and all fail more or less to convey the author's meaning.
Though so often translated, there is not a complete English edition
of the Maxims and Reflections. All the translations are confined
exclusively to the Maxims, none include the Reflections. This may be
accounted for, from the fact that most of the translations are taken
from the old editions of the Maxims, in which the Reflections do
not appear. Until M. Suard devoted his attention to the text of
Rochefoucauld, the various editions were but reprints of the preceding
ones, without any regard to the alterations made by the author in the
later editions published during his life-time. So much was this the
case, that Maxims which had been rejected by Rochefoucauld in his last
edition, were still retained in the body of the work. To give but one
example, the celebrated Maxim as to the misfortunes of our friends, was
omitted in the last edition of the book, published in Rochefoucauld's
life-time, yet in every English edition this Maxim appears in the body
of the work.
M. Aime Martin in 1827 published an edition of the Maxims and
Reflections which has ever since been the standard text of Rochefoucauld
in France. The Maxims are printed from the edition of 1678, the last
published during the author's life, and the last which received his
corrections. To this edition were added two Supplements; the first
containing the Maxims which had appeared in the editions of 1665, 1666,
and 1675, and which were afterwards omitted; the second, some additional
Maxims found among various of the author's manuscripts in the Royal
Library at Paris. And a Series of Reflections which had been previously
published in a work called "Receuil de pieces d'histoire et de
litterature." Paris, 1731. They were first published with the Maxims in
an edition by Gabriel Brotier.
In an edition of Rochefoucauld entitled "Reflexions, ou Sentences et
Maximes Morales, augmentees de plus deux cent nouvelles Maximes et
Maximes et Pensees diverses suivant les copies Imprimees a Paris, chez
Claude Barbin, et Matre Cramoisy 1692,"* some fifty Maxims were added,
ascribed by the editor to Rochefoucauld, and as his family allowed them
to be published under his name, it seems probable they were genuine.
These fifty form the third supplement to this book.
*In all the French editions this book is spoken of as
published in 1693. The only copy I have seen is in the
Cambridge University Library, 47, 16, 81, and is called
"Reflexions Morales."
The apology for the present edition of Rochefoucauld must therefore be
twofold: firstly, that it is an attempt to give the public a complete
English edition of Rochefoucauld's works as a moralist. The body of the
work comprises the Maxims as the author finally left them, the first
supplement, those published in former editions, and rejected by the
author in the later; the second, the unpublished Maxims taken from the
author's correspondence and manuscripts, and the third, the Maxims first
published in 1692. While the Reflections, in which the thoughts in the
Maxims are extended and elaborated, now appear in English for the first
time. And secondly, that it is an attempt (to quote the preface of the
edition of 1749) "to do the Duc de la Rochefoucauld the justice to make
him speak English."
Introduction
{Translators'}
The description of the "ancien regime" in France, "a despotism tempered
by epigrams," like most epigrammatic sentences, contains some truth,
with much fiction. The society of the last half of the seventeenth, and
the whole of the eighteenth centuries, was doubtless greatly influenced
by the precise and terse mode in which the popular writers of that date
expressed their thoughts. To a people naturally inclined to think that
every possible view, every conceivable argument, upon a question is
included in a short aphorism, a shrug, and the word "voila," truths
expressed in condensed sentences must always have a peculiar charm. It
is, perhaps, from this love of epigram, that we find so many eminent
French writers of maxims. Pascal, De Retz, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere,
Montesquieu, and Vauvenargues, each contributed to the rich stock of
French epigrams. No other country can show such a list of brilliant
writers--in England certainly we cannot. Our most celebrated, Lord
Bacon, has, by his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their fame
is, to a great measure, obscured. The only Englishman who could have
rivalled La Rochefoucauld or La Bruyere was the Earl of Chesterfield,
and he only could have done so from his very intimate connexion
with France; but unfortunately his brilliant genius was spent in the
impossible task of trying to refine a boorish young Briton, in "cutting
blocks with a razor."
Of all the French epigrammatic writers La Rochefoucauld is at once the
most widely known, and the most distinguished. Voltaire, whose opinion
on the century of Louis XIV. is entitled to the greatest weight, says,
"One of the works that most largely contributed to form the taste of
the nation, and to diffuse a spirit of justice and precision, is the
collection of maxims, by Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld."
This Francois, the second Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac,
the author of the maxims, was one of the most illustrious members of the
most illustrious families among the French noblesse. Descended from the
ancient Dukes of Guienne, the founder of the Family Fulk or Foucauld, a
younger branch of the House of Lusignan, was at the commencement of
the eleventh century the Seigneur of a small town, La Roche, in the
Angounois. Our chief knowledge of this feudal lord is drawn from
the monkish chronicles. As the benefactor of the various abbeys and
monasteries in his province, he is naturally spoken of by them in terms
of eulogy, and in the charter of one of the abbeys of Angouleme he is
called, "vir nobilissimus Fulcaldus." His territorial power enabled him
to adopt what was then, as is still in Scotland, a common custom, to
prefix the name of his estate to his surname, and thus to create and
transmit to his descendants the illustrious surname of La Rochefoucauld.
From that time until that great crisis in the history of the French
aristocracy, the Revolution of 1789, the family of La Rochefoucauld have
been, "if not first, in the very first line" of that most illustrious
body. One Seigneur served under Philip Augustus against Richard Coeur de
Lion, and was made prisoner at the battle of Gisors. The eighth
Seigneur Guy performed a great tilt at Bordeaux, attended (according
to Froissart) to the Lists by some two hundred of his kindred and
relations. The sixteenth Seigneur Francais was chamberlain to Charles
VIII. and Louis XII., and stood at the font as sponsor, giving his name
to that last light of French chivalry, Francis I. In 1515 he was created
a baron, and was afterwards advanced to a count, on account of his great
service to Francis and his predecessors.
The second count pushed the family fortune still further by obtaining
a patent as the Prince de Marsillac. His widow, Anne de Polignac,
entertained Charles V. at the family chateau at Verteuil, in so princely
a manner that on leaving Charles observed, "He had never entered a
house so redolent of high virtue, uprightness, and lordliness as that
mansion."
The third count, after serving with distinction under the Duke of
Guise against the Spaniards, was made prisoner at St. Quintin, and only
regained his liberty to fall a victim to the "bloody infamy" of St.
Bartholomew. His son, the fourth count, saved with difficulty from that
massacre, after serving with distinction in the religious wars, was
taken prisoner in a skirmish at St. Yriex la Perche, and murdered by the
Leaguers in cold blood.
The fifth count, one of the ministers of Louis XIII., after fighting
against the English and Buckingham at the Ile de Re, was created a duke.
His son Francis, the second duke, by his writings has made the family
name a household word.
The third duke fought in many of the earlier campaigns of Louis XIV. at
Torcy, Lille, Cambray, and was dangerously wounded at the passage of
the Rhine. From his bravery he rose to high favour at Court, and was
appointed Master of the Horse (Grand Veneur) and Lord Chamberlain. His
son, the fourth duke, commanded the regiment of Navarre, and took part
in storming the village of Neerwinden on the day when William III. was
defeated at Landen. He was afterwards created Duc de la Rochequyon and
Marquis de Liancourt.
The fifth duke, banished from Court by Louis XV., became the friend of
the philosopher Voltaire.
The sixth duke, the friend of Condorcet, was the last of the long line
of noble lords who bore that distinguished name. In those terrible days
of September, 1792, when the French people were proclaiming universal
humanity, the duke was seized as an aristocrat by the mob at Gisors and
put to death behind his own carriage, in which sat his mother and
his wife, at the very place where, some six centuries previously, his
ancestor had been taken prisoner in a fair fight. A modern writer has
spoken of this murder "as an admirable reprisal upon the grandson
for the writings and conduct of the grandfather." But M. Sainte Beuve
observes as to this, he can see nothing admirable in the death of the
duke, and if it proves anything, it is only that the grandfather was not
so wrong in his judgment of men as is usually supposed.
Francis, the author, was born on the 15th December 1615. M. Sainte Beuve
divides his life into four periods, first, from his birth till he was
thirty-five, when he became mixed up in the war of the Fronde; the
second period, during the progress of that war; the third, the twelve
years that followed, while he recovered from his wounds, and wrote his
maxims during his retirement from society; and the last from that time
till his death.
In the same way that Herodotus calls each book of his history by
the name of one of the muses, so each of these four periods of La
Rochefoucauld's life may be associated with the name of a woman who was
for the time his ruling passion. These four ladies are the Duchesse de
Chevreuse, the Duchesse de Longueville, Madame de Sable, and Madame de
La Fayette.
La Rochefoucauld's early education was neglected; his father, occupied
in the affairs of state, either had not, or did not devote any time to
his education. His natural talents and his habits of observation soon,
however, supplied all deficiencies. By birth and station placed in
the best society of the French Court, he soon became a most finished
courtier. Knowing how precarious Court favour then was, his father, when
young Rochefoucauld was only nine years old, sent him into the army.
He was subsequently attached to the regiment of Auvergne. Though but
sixteen he was present, and took part in the military operations at the
siege of Cassel. The Court of Louis XIII. was then ruled imperiously
by Richelieu. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld was strongly opposed to the
Cardinal's party. By joining in the plots of Gaston of Orleans, he gave
Richelieu an opportunity of ridding Paris of his opposition. When those
plots were discovered, the Duke was sent into a sort of banishment to
Blois. His son, who was then at Court with him, was, upon the pretext of
a liaison with Mdlle. d'Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting on the
Queen (Anne of Austria), but in reality to prevent the Duke learning
what was passing at Paris, sent with his father. The result of the exile
was Rochefoucauld's marriage. With the exception that his wife's name
was Mdlle. Vivonne, and that she was the mother of five sons and three
daughters, nothing is known of her. While Rochefoucauld and his father
were at Blois, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, one of the beauties of
the Court, and the mistress of Louis, was banished to Tours. She and
Rochefoucauld met, and soon became intimate, and for a time she was
destined to be the one motive of his actions. The Duchesse was engaged
in a correspondence with the Court of Spain and the Queen. Into this
plot Rochefoucauld threw himself with all his energy; his connexion with
the Queen brought him back to his old love Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and led
him to her party, which he afterwards followed. The course he took shut
him off from all chance of Court favour. The King regarded him with
coldness, the Cardinal with irritation. Although the Bastile and the
scaffold, the fate of Chalais and Montmorency, were before his eyes,
they failed to deter him from plotting. He was about twenty-three;
returning to Paris, he warmly sided with the Queen. He says in his
Memoirs that the only persons she could then trust were himself and
Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and it was proposed he should take both of them
from Paris to Brussels. Into this plan he entered with all his youthful
indiscretion, it being for several reasons the very one he would wish to
adopt, as it would strengthen his influence with Anne of Austria, place
Richelieu and his master in an uncomfortable position, and save Mdlle.
d'Hautefort from the attentions the King was showing her.
But Richelieu of course discovered this plot, and Rochefoucauld was,
of course, sent to the Bastile. He was liberated after a week's
imprisonment, but banished to his chateau at Verteuil.
The reason for this clemency was that the Cardinal desired to win
Rochefoucauld from the Queen's party. A command in the army was offered
to him, but by the Queen's orders refused.
For some three years Rochefoucauld remained at Verteuil, waiting the
time for his reckoning with Richelieu; speculating on the King's death,
and the favours he would then receive from the Queen. During this period
he was more or less engaged in plotting against his enemy the Cardinal,
and hatching treason with Cinq Mars and De Thou.
M. Sainte Beuve says, that unless we study this first part of
Rochefoucauld's life, we shall never understand his maxims. The bitter
disappointment of the passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the
deceit and treachery then witnessed, furnished the real key to their
meaning. The cutting cynicism of the morality was built on the ruins of
that chivalrous ambition and romantic affection. He saw his friend Cinq
Mars sent to the scaffold, himself betrayed by men whom he had trusted,
and the only reason he could assign for these actions was intense
selfishness.
Meanwhile, Richelieu died. Rochefoucauld returned to Court, and found
Anne of Austria regent, and Mazarin minister. The Queen's former friends
flocked there in numbers, expecting that now their time of prosperity
had come. They were bitterly disappointed. Mazarin relied on hope
instead of gratitude, to keep the Queen's adherents on his side. The
most that any received were promises that were never performed. In after
years, doubtless, Rochefoucauld's recollection of his disappointment led
him to write the maxim: "We promise according to our hopes, we perform
according to our fears." But he was not even to receive promises; he
asked for the Governorship of Havre, which was then vacant. He was
flatly refused. Disappointment gave rise to anger, and uniting with
his old flame, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, who had received the same
treatment, and with the Duke of Beaufort, they formed a conspiracy
against the government. The plot was, of course, discovered and crushed.
Beaufort was arrested, the Duchesse banished. Irritated and disgusted,
Rochefoucauld went with the Duc d'Enghein, who was then joining the
army, on a campaign, and here he found the one love of his life, the
Duke's sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady, young, beautiful, and
accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was
the cause of his taking the side of Conde in the subsequent civil war.
Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. He was badly wounded at
the siege of Mardik, and returned from thence to Paris. On recovering
from his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. This war is said
to have been most ridiculous, as being carried on without a definite
object, a plan, or a leader. But this description is hardly correct; it
was the struggle of the French nobility against the rule of the Court;
an attempt, the final attempt, to recover their lost influence over the
state, and to save themselves from sinking under the rule of cardinals
and priests.
With the general history of that war we have nothing to do; it is far
too complicated and too confused to be stated here. The memoirs of
Rochefoucauld and De Retz will give the details to those who desire to
trace the contests of the factions--the course of the intrigues. We may
confine ourselves to its progress so far as it relates to the Duc de la
Rochefoucauld.
On the Cardinal causing the Princes de Conde and Conti, and the Duc de
Longueville, to be arrested, Rochefoucauld and the Duchess fled into
Normandy. Leaving her at Dieppe, he went into Poitou, of which province
he had some years previously bought the post of governor. He was there
joined by the Duc de Bouillon, and he and the Duke marched to, and
occupied Bordeaux. Cardinal Mazarin and Marechal de la Meilleraie
advanced in force on Bordeaux, and attacked the town. A bloody battle
followed. Rochefoucauld defended the town with the greatest bravery,
and repulsed the Cardinal. Notwithstanding the repulse, the burghers of
Bordeaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city from destruction.
The Parliament of Bordeaux compelled Rochefoucauld to surrender. He did
so, and returned nominally to Poitou, but in reality in secret to Paris.
There he found the Queen engaged in trying to maintain her position by
playing off the rival parties of the Prince Conde and the Cardinal
De Retz against each other. Rochefoucauld eagerly espoused his old
party--that of Conde. In August, 1651, the contending parties met in the
Hall of the Parliament of Paris, and it was with great difficulty they
were prevented from coming to blows even there. It is even said that
Rochefoucauld had ordered his followers to murder De Retz.
Rochefoucauld was soon to undergo a bitter disappointment. While
occupied with party strife and faction in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse
left him, and formed an alliance with the Duc de Nemours. Rochefoucauld
still loved her. It was, probably, thinking of this that he afterwards
wrote, "Jealousy is born with love, but does not die with it." He
endeavoured to get Madame de Chatillon, the old mistress of the Duc de
Nemours, reinstated in favour, but in this he did not succeed. The Duc
de Nemours was soon after killed in a duel. The war went on, and after
several indecisive skirmishes, the decisive battle was fought at Paris,
in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where the Parisians first learnt the use
or the abuse of their favourite defence, the barricade. In this battle,
Rochefoucauld behaved with great bravery. He was wounded in the head, a
wound which for a time deprived him of his sight. Before he recovered,
the war was over, Louis XIV. had attained his majority, the gold of
Mazarin, the arms of Turenne, had been successful, the French nobility
were vanquished, the court supremacy established.
This completed Rochefoucauld's active life.
When he recovered his health, he devoted himself to society. Madame
de Sable assumed a hold over him. He lived a quiet life, and occupied
himself in composing an account of his early life, called his "Memoirs,"
and his immortal "Maxims."
From the time he ceased to take part in public life, Rochefoucauld's
real glory began. Having acted the various parts of soldier, politician,
and lover with but small success, he now commenced the part of moralist,
by which he is known to the world.
Living in the most brilliant society that France possessed, famous
from his writings, distinguished from the part he had taken in public
affairs, he formed the centre of one of those remarkable French literary
societies, a society which numbered among its members La Fontaine,
Racine, Boileau. Among his most attached friends was Madame de
La Fayette (the authoress of the "Princess of Cleeves"), and this
friendship continued until his death. He was not, however, destined to
pass away in that gay society without some troubles. At the passage of
the Rhine in 1672 two of his sons were engaged; the one was killed, the
other severely wounded. Rochefoucauld was much affected by this, but
perhaps still more by the death of the young Duc de Longueville, who
perished on the same occasion.
Sainte Beuve says that the cynical book and that young life were the
only fruits of the war of the Fronde. Madame de Sevigne, who was with
him when he heard the news of the death of so much that was dear to
him, says, "I saw his heart laid bare on that cruel occasion, and his
courage, his merit, his tenderness, and good sense surpassed all I ever
met with. I hold his wit and accomplishments as nothing in comparison."
The combined effect of his wounds and the gout caused the last years of
Rochefoucauld's life to be spent in great pain. Madame de Sevigne,
who was {with} him continually during his last illness, speaks of the
fortitude with which he bore his sufferings as something to be admired.
Writing to her daughter, she says, "Believe me, it is not for nothing he
has moralised all his life; he has thought so often on his last moments
that they are nothing new or unfamiliar to him."
In his last illness, the great moralist was attended by the great
divine, Bossuet. Whether that matchless eloquence or his own philosophic
calm had, in spite of his writings, brought him into the state Madame
de Sevigne describes, we know not; but one, or both, contributed to
his passing away in a manner that did not disgrace a French noble or a
French philosopher. On the 11th March, 1680, he ended his stormy life in
peace after so much strife, a loyal subject after so much treason.
One of his friends, Madame Deshoulieres, shortly before he died sent
him an ode on death, which aptly describes his state-- "Oui, soyez alors
plus ferme, Que ces vulgaires humains Qui, pres de leur dernier terme,
De vaines terreurs sont pleins. En sage que rien n'offense, Livrez-vous
sans resistance A d'inevitables traits; Et, d'une demarche egale, Passez
cette onde fatal Qu'on ne repasse jamais."
Rochefoucauld left behind him only two works, the one, Memoirs of his
own time, the other the Maxims. The first described the scenes in which
his youth had been spent, and though written in a lively style, and
giving faithful pictures of the intrigues and the scandals of the court
during Louis XIV.'s minority, yet, except to the historian, has ceased
at the present day to be of much interest. It forms, perhaps, the true
key to understand the special as opposed to general application of the
maxims.
Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that "there are few people so
bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld
to the Commentaries of Caesar," or the statement of Voltaire, "that the
Memoirs are universally read and the Maxims are learnt by heart," few
persons at the present day ever heard of the Memoirs, and the knowledge
of most as to the Maxims is confined to that most celebrated of all,
though omitted from his last edition, "There is something in the
misfortunes of our best friends which does not wholly displease us." Yet
it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener
unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon
none have so many contradictory opinions been given.
"Few books," says Mr. Hallam, "have been more highly extolled, or more
severely blamed, than the maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucauld, and that
not only here, but also in France." Rousseau speaks of it as, "a sad and
melancholy book," though he goes on to say "it is usually so in youth
when we do not like seeing man as he is." Voltaire says of it, in the
words above quoted, "One of the works which most contributed to form the
taste of the (French) nation, and to give it a spirit of justness
and precision, was the collection of the maxims of Francois Duc de la
Rochefoucauld, though there is scarcely more than one truth running
through the book--that 'self-love is the motive of everything'--yet
this thought is presented under so many varied aspects that it is
nearly always striking. It is not so much a book as it is materials for
ornamenting a book. This little collection was read with avidity, it
taught people to think, and to comprise their thoughts in a lively,
precise, and delicate turn of expression. This was a merit which, before
him, no one in Europe had attained since the revival of letters."
Dr. Johnson speaks of it as "the only book written by a man of fashion,
of which professed authors need be jealous."
Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says, "Till you come to
know mankind by your experience, I know no thing nor no man that can
in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as Le Duc de la
Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims, which I would advise you to
look into for some moments at least every day of your life, is, I fear,
too like and too exact a picture of human nature. I own it seems to
degrade it, but yet my experience does not convince me that it degrades
it unjustly."
Bishop Butler, on the other hand, blames the book in no measured terms.
"There is a strange affectation," says the bishop, "in some people of
explaining away all particular affection, and representing the whole
life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. Hence arise
that surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old,
Hobbes, the author of 'Reflexions Morales,' and the whole set of
writers, of calling actions interested which are done of the most
manifest known interest, merely for the gratification of a present
passion."
The judgment the reader will be most inclined to adopt will perhaps be
either that of Mr. Hallam, "Concise and energetic in expression, reduced
to those short aphorisms which leave much to the reader's acuteness and
yet save his labour, not often obscure, and never wearisome, an evident
generalisation of long experience, without pedantry, without method,
without deductive reasonings, yet wearing an appearance at least of
profundity; they delight the intelligent though indolent man of the
world, and must be read with some admiration by the philosopher . . . .
yet they bear witness to the contracted observation and the precipitate
inferences which an intercourse with a single class of society scarcely
fails to generate." Or that of Addison, who speaks of Rochefoucauld "as
the great philosopher for administering consolation to the idle, the
curious, and the worthless part of mankind."
We are fortunately in possession of materials such as rarely exist to
enable us to form a judgment of Rochefoucauld's character. We have, with
a vanity that could only exist in a Frenchman, a description or portrait
of himself, of his own painting, and one of those inimitable living
sketches in which his great enemy, Cardinal De Retz, makes all the chief
actors in the court of the regency of Anne of Austria pass across the
stage before us.
We will first look on the portrait Rochefoucauld has left us of himself:
"I am," says he, "of a medium height, active, and well-proportioned. My
complexion dark, but uniform, a high forehead; and of moderate height,
black eyes, small, deep set, eyebrows black and thick but well placed. I
am rather embarrassed in talking of my nose, for it is neither flat nor
aquiline, nor large; nor pointed: but I believe, as far as I can say,
it is too large than too small, and comes down just a trifle too low. I
have a large mouth, lips generally red enough, neither shaped well nor
badly. I have white teeth, and fairly even. I have been told I have
a little too much chin. I have just looked at myself in the glass to
ascertain the fact, and I do not know how to decide. As to the shape of
my face, it is either square or oval, but which I should find it very
difficult to say. I have black hair, which curls by nature, and thick
and long enough to entitle me to lay claim to a fine head. I have in my
countenance somewhat of grief and pride, which gives many people an idea
I despise them, although I am not at all given to do so. My gestures are
very free, rather inclined to be too much so, for in speaking they
make me use too much action. Such, candidly, I believe I am in outward
appearance, and I believe it will be found that what I have said
above of myself is not far from the real case. I shall use the same
truthfulness in the remainder of my picture, for I have studied myself
sufficiently to know myself well; and I will lack neither boldness to
speak as freely as I can of my good qualities, nor sincerity to freely
avow that I have faults.
"In the first place, to speak of my temper. I am melancholy, and I have
hardly been seen for the last three or four years to laugh above three
or four times. It seems to me that my melancholy would be even endurable
and pleasant if I had none but what belonged to me constitutionally; but
it arises from so many other causes, fills my imagination in such a way,
and possesses my mind so strongly that for the greater part of my time
I remain without speaking a word, or give no meaning to what I say. I am
extremely reserved to those I do not know, and I am not very open with
the greater part of those I do. It is a fault I know well, and I should
neglect no means to correct myself of it; but as a certain gloomy air I
have tends to make me seem more reserved than I am in fact, and as it is
not in our power to rid ourselves of a bad expression that arises from
a natural conformation of features, I think that even when I have cured
myself internally, externally some bad expression will always remain.
"I have ability. I have no hesitation in saying it, as for what purpose
should I pretend otherwise. So great circumvention, and so great
depreciation, in speaking of the gifts one has, seems to me to hide a
little vanity under an apparent modesty, and craftily to try to make
others believe in greater virtues than are imputed to us. On my part
I am content not to be considered better-looking than I am, nor of a
better temper than I describe, nor more witty and clever than I am. Once
more, I have ability, but a mind spoilt by melancholy, for though I
know my own language tolerably well, and have a good memory, a mode
of thought not particularly confused, I yet have so great a mixture of
discontent that I often say what I have to say very badly.
"The conversation of gentlemen is one of the pleasures that most amuses
me. I like it to be serious and morality to form the substance of it.
Yet I also know how to enjoy it when trifling; and if I do not make
many witty speeches, it is not because I do not appreciate the value of
trifles well said, and that I do not find great amusement in that manner
of raillery in which certain prompt and ready-witted persons excel so
well. I write well in prose; I do well in verse; and if I was envious of
the glory that springs from that quarter, I think with a little labour
I could acquire some reputation. I like reading, in general; but that in
which one finds something to polish the wit and strengthen the soul
is what I like best. But, above all, I have the greatest pleasure in
reading with an intelligent person, for then we reflect constantly upon
what we read, and the observations we make form the most pleasant and
useful form of conversation there is.
"I am a fair critic of the works in verse and prose that are shown me;
but perhaps I speak my opinion with almost too great freedom. Another
fault in me is that I have sometimes a spirit of delicacy far too
scrupulous, and a spirit of criticism far too severe. I do not dislike
an argument, and I often of my own free will engage in one; but I
generally back my opinion with too much warmth, and sometimes, when the
wrong side is advocated against me, from the strength of my zeal for
reason, I become a little unreasonable myself.
"I have virtuous sentiments, good inclinations, and so strong a desire
to be a wholly good man that my friend cannot afford me a greater
pleasure than candidly to show me my faults. Those who know me most
intimately, and those who have the goodness sometimes to give me the
above advice, know that I always receive it with all the joy that could
be expected, and with all reverence of mind that could be desired.
"I have all the passions pretty mildly, and pretty well under control.
I am hardly ever seen in a rage, and I never hated any one. I am not,
however, incapable of avenging myself if I have been offended, or if my
honour demanded I should resent an insult put upon me; on the contrary,
I feel clear that duty would so well discharge the office of hatred in
me that I should follow my revenge with even greater keenness than other
people.
"Ambition does not weary me. I fear but few things, and I do not fear
death in the least. I am but little given to pity, and I could wish I
was not so at all. Though there is nothing I would not do to comfort an
afflicted person, and I really believe that one should do all one can to
show great sympathy to him for his misfortune, for miserable people are
so foolish that this does them the greatest good in the world; yet
I also hold that we should be content with expressing sympathy, and
carefully avoid having any. It is a passion that is wholly worthless in
a well-regulated mind, which only serves to weaken the heart, and which
should be left to ordinary persons, who, as they never do anything from
reason, have need of passions to stimulate their actions.
"I love my friends; and I love them to such an extent that I would not
for a moment weigh my interest against theirs. I condescend to them,
I patiently endure their bad temper. But, also, I do not make much of
their caresses, and I do not feel great uneasiness in their absence.
"Naturally, I have but little curiosity about the majority of things
that stir up curiosity in other men. I am very secret, and I have less
difficulty than most men in holding my tongue as to what is told me in
confidence. I am most particular as to my word, and I would never fail,
whatever might be the consequence, to do what I had promised; and I have
made this an inflexible law during the whole of my life.
"I keep the most punctilious civility to women. I do not believe I have
ever said anything before them which could cause them annoyance. When
their intellect is cultivated, I prefer their society to that of men:
one there finds a mildness one does not meet with among ourselves,
and it seems to me beyond this that they express themselves with more
neatness, and give a more agreeable turn to the things they talk about.
As for flirtation, I formerly indulged in a little, now I shall do so no
more, though I am still young. I have renounced all flirtation, and I am
simply astonished that there are still so many sensible people who can
occupy their time with it.
"I wholly approve of real loves; they indicate greatness of soul, and
although, in the uneasiness they give rise to, there is a something
contrary to strict wisdom, they fit in so well with the most severe
virtue, that I believe they cannot be censured with justice. To me who
have known all that is fine and grand in the lofty aspirations of love,
if I ever fall in love, it will assuredly be in love of that nature. But
in accordance with the present turn of my mind, I do not believe that
the knowledge I have of it will ever change from my mind to my heart."
Such is his own description of himself. Let us now turn to the other
picture, delineated by the man who was his bitterest enemy, and whom (we
say it with regret) Rochefoucauld tried to murder.
Cardinal De Retz thus paints him:-- "In M. de la Rochefoucauld there was
ever an indescribable something. From his infancy he always wanted to
be mixed up with plots, at a time when he could not understand even
the smallest interests (which has indeed never been his weak point,)
or comprehend greater ones, which in another sense has never been his
strong point. He was never fitted for any matter, and I really cannot
tell the reason. His glance was not sufficiently wide, and he could not
take in at once all that lay in his sight, but his good sense, perfect
in theories, combined with his gentleness, his winning ways, his
pleasing manners, which are perfect, should more than compensate for
his lack of penetration. He always had a natural irresoluteness, but I
cannot say to what this irresolution is to be attributed. It could not
arise in him from the wealth of his imagination, for that was anything
but lively. I cannot put it down to the barrenness of his judgment, for,
although he was not prompt in action, he had a good store of reason. We
see the effects of this irresolution, although we cannot assign a
cause for it. He was never a general, though a great soldier; never,
naturally, a good courtier, although he had always a good idea of being
so. He was never a good partizan, although all his life engaged in
intrigues. That air of pride and timidity which your see in his private
life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner. He always
believed he had need of it; and this, combined with his 'Maxims,' which
show little faith in virtue, and his habitual custom, to give up matters
with the same haste he undertook them, leads me to the conclusion that
he would have done far better to have known his own mind, and have
passed himself off, as he could have done, for the most polished
courtier, the most agreeable man in private life that had appeared in
his century."
It is but justice to the Cardinal to say, that the Duc is not painted in
such dark colours as we should have expected, judging from what we know
of the character of De Retz. With his marvellous power of depicting
character, a power unrivalled, except by St. Simon and perhaps by Lord
Clarendon, we should have expected the malignity of the priest would
have stamped the features of his great enemy with the impress of infamy,
and not have simply made him appear a courtier, weak, insincere,
and nothing more. Though rather beyond our subject, the character of
Cardinal de Retz, as delineated by Mdme. Sevigne, in one of her letters,
will help us to form a true conclusion on the different characters of
the Duc and the Cardinal. She says:-- "Paul de Gondi Cardinal de Retz
possesses great elevation of character, a certain extent of intellect,
and more of the ostentation than of the true greatness of courage. He
has an extraordinary memory, more energy than polish in his words, an
easy humour, docility of character, and weakness in submitting to
the complaints and reproaches of his friends, a little piety, some
appearances of religion. He appears ambitious without being really so.
Vanity and those who have guided him, have made him undertake great
things, almost all opposed to his profession. He excited the greatest
troubles in the State without any design of turning them to account, and
far from declaring himself the enemy of Cardinal Mazarin with any view
of occupying his place, he thought of nothing but making himself an
object of dread to him, and flattering himself with the false vanity of
being his rival. He was clever enough, however, to take advantage of
the public calamities to get himself made Cardinal. He endured his
imprisonment with firmness, and owed his liberty solely to his own
daring. In the obscurity of a life of wandering and concealment, his
indolence for many years supported him with reputation. He preserved the
Archbishopric of Paris against the power of Cardinal Mazarin, but after
the death of that minister, he resigned it without knowing what he
was doing, and without making use of the opportunity to promote the
interests of himself and his friends. He has taken part in several
conclaves, and his conduct has always increased his reputation.
"His natural bent is to indolence, nevertheless he labours with
activity in pressing business, and reposes with indifference when it is
concluded. He has great presence of mind, and knows so well how to turn
it to his own advantage on all occasions presented him by fortune,
that it would seem as if he had foreseen and desired them. He loves
to narrate, and seeks to dazzle all his listeners indifferently by his
extraordinary adventures, and his imagination often supplies him with
more than his memory. The generality of his qualities are false, and
what has most contributed to his reputation is his power of throwing
a good light on his faults. He is insensible alike to hatred and to
friendship, whatever pains he may be at to appear taken up with the one
or the other. He is incapable of envy or avarice, whether from virtue or
from carelessness. He has borrowed more from his friends than a private
person could ever hope to be able to repay; he has felt the vanity of
acquiring so much on credit, and of undertaking to discharge it. He has
neither taste nor refinement; he is amused by everything and pleased
by nothing. He avoids difficult matters with considerable address,
not allowing people to penetrate the slight acquaintance he has with
everything. The retreat he has just made from the world is the most
brilliant and the most unreal action of his life; it is a sacrifice he
has made to his pride under the pretence of devotion; he quits the court
to which he cannot attach himself, and retires from a world which is
retiring from him."
The Maxims were first published in 1665, with a preface by Segrais.
This preface was omitted in the subsequent editions. The first edition
contained 316 maxims, counting the last upon death, which was not
numbered. The second in 1666 contained only 102; the third in 1671, and
the fourth in 1675, 413. In this last edition we first meet with the
introductory maxim, "Our virtues are generally but disguised vices." The
edition of 1678, the fifth, increased the number to 504. This was the
last edition revised by the author, and published in his lifetime. The
text of that edition has been used for the present translation. The next
edition, the sixth, was published in 1693, about thirteen years after
the author's death. This edition included fifty new maxims, attributed
by the editor to Rochefoucauld. Most likely they were his writing, as
the fact was never denied by his family, through whose permission they
were published. They form the third supplement to the translation. This
sixth edition was published by Claude Barbin, and the French editions
since that time have been too numerous to be enumerated. The great
popularity of the Maxims is perhaps best shown from the numerous
translations that have been made of them. No less than eight English
translations, or so-called translations, have appeared; one American, a
Swedish, and a Spanish translation, an Italian imitation, with parallel
passages, and an English imitation by Hazlitt. The titles of the English
editions are as follows:-- i. Seneca Unmasked. By Mrs. Aphara Behn.
London, 1689. She calls the author the Duke of Rushfucave. ii. Moral
Maxims and Reflections, in four parts. By the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
Now made English. London, 1694. 12 mo. iii. Moral Maxims and Reflections
of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Newly made English. London, 1706. 12
mo. iv. Moral Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Translated
from the French. With notes. London, 1749. 12 mo. v. Maxims and Moral
Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Revised and improved.
London, 1775. 8 vo. vi. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld. A new edition, revised and improved, by L. D. London,
1781. 8 vo. vii. The Gentleman's Library. La Rochefoucauld's Maxims
and Moral Reflections. London, 1813. 12 mo. viii. Moral Reflections,
Sentences, and Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, newly translated
from the French; with an introduction and notes. London, 1850. 16 mo.
ix. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld: with a
Memoir by the Chevalier de Chatelain. London, 1868. 12 mo.
The perusal of the Maxims will suggest to every reader to a greater
or less degree, in accordance with the extent of his reading, parallel
passages, and similar ideas. Of ancient writers Rochefoucauld most
strongly reminds us of Tacitus; of modern writers, Junius most strongly
reminds us of Rochefoucauld. Some examples from both are given in the
notes to this translation. It is curious to see how the expressions
of the bitterest writer of English political satire to a great extent
express the same ideas as the great French satirist of private life.
Had space permitted the parallel could have been drawn very closely, and
much of the invective of Junius traced to its source in Rochefoucauld.
One of the persons whom Rochefoucauld patronised and protected, was
the great French fabulist, La Fontaine. This patronage was repaid by
La Fontaine giving, in one of his fables, "L'Homme et son Image," an
elaborate defence of his patron. After there depicting a man who fancied
himself one of the most lovely in the world, and who complained he
always found all mirrors untrustworthy, at last discovered his real
image reflected in the water. He thus applies his fable:-- "Je parle
a tous: et cette erreur extreme, Est un mal que chacun se plait
d'entretenir, Notre ame, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui meme, Tant
de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui. Miroirs, de nos defauts les
peintres legitimes, Et quant au canal, c'est celui Qui chacun sait, le
livre des MAXIMES."
It is just this: the book is a mirror in which we all see ourselves.
This has made it so unpopular. It is too true. We dislike to be told
of our faults, while we only like to be told of our neighbour's.
Notwithstanding Rousseau's assertion, it is young men, who, before they
know their own faults and only know their neighbours', that read and
thoroughly appreciate Rochefoucauld.
After so many varied opinions he then pleases us more and seems far
truer than he is in reality, it is impossible to give any general
conclusion of such distinguished writers on the subject. Each reader
will form his own opinion of the merits of the author and his book. To
some, both will seem deserving of the highest praise; to others both
will seem deserving of the highest censure. The truest judgment as to
the author will be found in the remarks of a countryman of his own, as
to the book in the remarks of a countryman of ours.
As to the author, M. Sainte Beuve says:--"C'etait un misanthrope poli,
insinuant, souriant, qui precedait de bien peu et preparait avec charme
l'autre MISANTHROPE."
As to the book, Mr. Hallam says:--"Among the books in ancient and
modern times which record the conclusions of observing men on the moral
qualities of their fellows, a high place should be reserved for the
Maxims of Rochefoucauld".
REFLECTIONS; OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
[This epigraph which is the key to the system of La Rochefoucauld, is
found in another form as No. 179 of the maxims of the first edition,
1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd, and reappears for the first
time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as at present, at the head of the
Reflections.--Aime Martin. Its best answer is arrived at by reversing
the predicate and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory
maxim equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues
disguised.]
1.--What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and
divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange;
and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave,
and women chaste.
"Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like
the meanest slave; Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride
in reasoning, not in acting, lies." Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. i. line 115.
2.--Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.
3.--Whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love,
there remain many unexplored territories there.
[This is the first hint of the system the author tries to develope. He
wishes to find in vice a motive for all our actions, but this does not
suffice him; he is obliged to call other passions to the help of his
system and to confound pride, vanity, interest and egotism with self
love. This confusion destroys the unity of his principle.--Aime Martin.]
4.--Self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
5.--The duration of our passions is no more dependant upon us than the
duration of our life. [Then what becomes of free will?--Aime; Martin]
6.--Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes
renders the most foolish man clever.
7.--Great and striking actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by
politicians as the effect of great designs, instead of which they are
commonly caused by the temper and the passions. Thus the war between
Augustus and Anthony, which is set down to the ambition they entertained
of making themselves masters of the world, was probably but an effect of
jealousy.
8.--The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are
a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man
with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
[See Maxim 249 which is an illustration of this.]
9.--The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which
makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust
them even when they appear most trustworthy.
10.--In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions; so
that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another.
11.--Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to
prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through
weakness and daring though timidity.
12.--Whatever care we take to conceal our passions under the appearances
of piety and honour, they are always to be seen through these veils.
[The 1st edition, 1665, preserves the image perhaps better--"however
we may conceal our passions under the veil, etc., there is always some
place where they peep out."]
13.--Our self love endures more impatiently the condemnation of our
tastes than of our opinions.
14.--Men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries; they even
hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have
injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a
benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.
15.--The clemency of Princes is often but policy to win the affections
of the people.
["So many are the advantages which monarchs gain by clemency, so greatly
does it raise their fame and endear them to their subjects, that it
is generally happy for them to have an opportunity of displaying
it."--Montesquieu, Esprit Des Lois, Lib. VI., C. 21.]
16.--This clemency of which they make a merit, arises oftentimes from
vanity, sometimes from idleness, oftentimes from fear, and almost always
from all three combined.
[La Rochefoucauld is content to paint the age in which he lived. Here
the clemency spoken of is nothing more than an expression of the policy
of Anne of Austria. Rochefoucauld had sacrificed all to her; even the
favour of Cardinal Richelieu, but when she became regent she bestowed
her favours upon those she hated; her friends were forgotten.--Aime
Martin. The reader will hereby see that the age in which the writer
lived best interprets his maxims.]
17.--The moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which
good fortune bestows upon their temper.
18.--Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt
which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a
vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men
at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their
fortune.
19.--We have all sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of
others.
[The strongest example of this is the passage in Lucretius, lib. ii.,
line I:-- "Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis E terra magnum
alterius spectare laborem."]
20.--The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the
agitation of their hearts.
[Thus wisdom is only hypocrisy, says a commentator. This definition of
constancy is a result of maxim 18.]
21.--Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and
contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may
say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage
is to their eyes.
[See this thought elaborated in maxim 504.]
22.--Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but
present evils triumph over it.
23.--Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from
determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die
because they know not how to prevent dying.
24.--When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance
of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition,
and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like
other men.
[Both these maxims have been rewritten and made conciser by the author;
the variations are not worth quoting.]
25.--We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune.
["Prosperity do{th} best discover vice, but adversity do{th} best
discover virtue."--Lord Bacon, Essays{, (1625), "Of Adversity"}.]
{The quotation wrongly had "does" for "doth".}
26.--Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking.
27.--People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but
envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow
her.
28.--Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to
preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the
other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.
29.--The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and
hatred as our good qualities.
30.--We have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an
excuse we say things are impossible.
31.--If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting
those of others.
32.--Jealousy lives upon doubt; and comes to an end or becomes a fury as
soon as it passes from doubt to certainty.
33.--Pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away
vanity.
[See maxim 450, where the author states, what we take from our other
faults we add to our pride.]
34.--If we had no pride we should not complain of that of others.
["The proud are ever most provoked by pride."--Cowper, Conversation
160.]
35.--Pride is much the same in all men, the only difference is the
method and manner of showing it.
["Pride bestowed on all a common friend."--Pope, Essay On Man, Ep. ii.,
line 273.]
36.--It would seem that nature, which has so wisely ordered the organs
of our body for our happiness, has also given us pride to spare us the
mortification of knowing our imperfections.
37.--Pride has a larger part than goodness in our remonstrances with
those who commit faults, and we reprove them not so much to correct as
to persuade them that we ourselves are free from faults.
38.--We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our
fears.
["The reason why the Cardinal (Mazarin) deferred so long to grant the
favours he had promised, was because he was persuaded that hope was much
more capable of keeping men to their duty than gratitude."--Fragments
Historiques. Racine.]
39.--Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of
characters; even that of disinterestedness.
40.--Interest blinds some and makes some see.
41.--Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often
become incapable of great things.
42.--We have not enough strength to follow all our reason.
43.--A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind
endeavours to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards
another.
44.--Strength and weakness of mind are mis-named; they are really only
the good or happy arrangement of our bodily organs.
45.--The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of
Fortune.
46.--The attachment or indifference which philosophers have shown to
life is only the style of their self love, about which we can no more
dispute than of that of the palate or of the choice of colours.
47.--Our temper sets a price upon every gift that we receive from
fortune.
48.--Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we
are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others
like.
49.--We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
50.--Those who think they have merit persuade themselves that they are
honoured by being unhappy, in order to persuade others and themselves
that they are worthy to be the butt of fortune.
["Ambition has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort
that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is{, that where} we
cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take
a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one
kind or other." --Burke, {On The Sublime And Beautiful, (1756), Part I,
Sect. XVII}.]
{The translators' incorrectly cite Speech On Conciliation With America.
Also, Burke does not actually write "Ambition has been...", he writes
"It has been..." when speaking of ambition.}
51.--Nothing should so much diminish the satisfaction which we feel
with ourselves as seeing that we disapprove at one time of that which we
approve of at another.
52.--Whatever difference there appears in our fortunes, there is
nevertheless a certain compensation of good and evil which renders them
equal.
53.--Whatever great advantages nature may give, it is not she alone, but
fortune also that makes the hero.
54.--The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to
avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the
very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard
themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by
which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.
["It is always easy as well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of
mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure
which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive
Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded
by poverty and ignorance."--Gibbon, Decline And Fall, Chap. 15.]
55.--The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT
possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it
evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not
being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the
world.
56.--To establish ourselves in the world we do everything to appear as
if we were established.
57.--Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are
not so often the result of a great design as of chance.
58.--It would seem that our actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which
they owe a great part of the blame or praise which is given them.
59.--There are no accidents so unfortunate from which skilful men will
not draw some advantage, nor so fortunate that foolish men will not turn
them to their hurt.
60.--Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she
smiles.
61.--The happiness or unhappiness of men depends no less upon their
dispositions than their fortunes.
["Still to ourselves in every place consigned Our own felicity we make
or find." Goldsmith, Traveller, 431.]
62.--Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few
people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the
confidence of others.
63.--The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our
words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our
conversation.
64.--Truth does not do as much good in the world, as its counterfeits do
evil.
65.--There is no praise we have not lavished upon Prudence; and yet she
cannot assure to us the most trifling event.
[The author corrected this maxim several times, in 1665 it is No.
75; 1666, No. 66; 1671-5, No. 65; in the last edition it stands as at
present. In the first he quotes Juvenal, Sat. X., line 315. " Nullum
numen habes si sit Prudentia, nos te; Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam,
coeloque locamus." Applying to Prudence what Juvenal does to Fortune,
and with much greater force.]
66.--A clever man ought to so regulate his interests that each will fall
in due order. Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after
so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after
the least we miss the greatest.
67.--What grace is to the body good sense is to the mind.
68.--It is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul
it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body
it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love--Plus many
mysteries.
["Love is the love of one {singularly,} with desire to be singularly
beloved."--Hobbes{Leviathan, (1651), Part I, Chapter VI}.]
{Two notes about this quotation: (1) the translators' mistakenly
have "singularity" for the first "singularly" and (2) Hobbes does not
actually write "Love is the..."--he writes "Love of one..." under the
heading "The passion of Love."}
69.--If there is a pure love, exempt from the mixture of our other
passions, it is that which is concealed at the bottom of the heart and
of which even ourselves are ignorant.
70.--There is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor
feign it where it does not.
71.--There are few people who would not be ashamed of being beloved when
they love no longer.
72.--If we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather
resembles hatred than friendship.
73.--We may find women who have never indulged in an intrigue, but it is
rare to find those who have intrigued but once.
["Yet there are some, they say, who have had None}; But those who
have, ne'er end with only one}." {--Lord Byron, }Don Juan, {Canto} iii.,
stanza 4.]
74.--There is only one sort of love, but there are a thousand different
copies.
75.--Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both
cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.
[So Lord Byron{Stanzas, (1819), stanza 3} says of Love-- "Like chiefs of
faction, His life is action."]
76.--There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person
speaks of it, few persons have seen it.
["Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art-- An unseen seraph, we believe
in thee-- A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,-- But never yet
hath seen, nor e'er shall see The naked eye, thy form as it should be."
{--Lord Byron, }Childe Harold, {Canto} iv., stanza 121.]
77.--Love lends its name to an infinite number of engagements
(Commerces) which are attributed to it, but with which it has no more
concern than the Doge has with all that is done in Venice.
78.--The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of
suffering injustice.
79.--Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.
80.--What renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is
difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of
the mind.
81.--We can love nothing but what agrees with us, and we can only follow
our taste or our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves;
nevertheless it is only by that preference that friendship can be true
and perfect.
82.--Reconciliation with our enemies is but a desire to better our
condition, a weariness of war, the fear of some unlucky accident.
["Thus terminated that famous war of the Fronde. The Duke de la
Rochefoucauld desired peace because of his dangerous wounds and ruined
castles, which had made him dread even worse events. On the other side
the Queen, who had shown herself so ungrateful to her too ambitious
friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of their resentment. 'I
wish,' said she, 'it were always night, because daylight shows me so
many who have betrayed me.'"--Memoires De Madame De Motteville, Tom.
IV., p. 60. Another proof that although these maxims are in some cases
of universal application, they were based entirely on the experience of
the age in which the author lived.]
83.--What men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection
of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours--in fact it is but a
trade in which self love always expects to gain something.
84.--It is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our
friends.
85.--We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful
than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give
our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to
receive.
86.--Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.
87.--Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each
other.
[A maxim, adds Aime Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar
rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we
have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."--2
TIM. iii. 13.]
88.--Self love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our
friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them, and we
judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.
89.--Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.
90.--In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by
our good qualities.
91.--The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it
meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.
92.--To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him
as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in
believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.
[That is, they cured him. The madman was Thrasyllus, son of Pythodorus.
His brother Crito cured him, when he infinitely regretted the time of
his more pleasant madness.--See Aelian, Var. Hist. iv. 25. So Horace--
------------"Pol, me occidistis, amici, Non servastis," ait, "cui sic
extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error." HOR. EP.
ii--2, 138, of the madman who was cured of a pleasant lunacy.]
93.--Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact
that they can no longer set bad examples.
94.--Great names degrade instead of elevating those who know not how to
sustain them.
95.--The test of extraordinary merit is to see those who envy it the
most yet obliged to praise it.
96.--A man is perhaps ungrateful, but often less chargeable with
ingratitude than his benefactor is.
97.--We are deceived if we think that mind and judgment are two
different matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind.
This light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can
be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we must
agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all
the effects which we attribute to judgment.
98.--Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding.
99.--Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined
thoughts.
100.--Gallantry of mind is saying the most empty things in an agreeable
manner.
101.--Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could
make them after much labour.
102.--The head is ever the dupe of the heart.
[A feeble imitation of that great thought "All folly comes from
the heart."--Aime Martin. But Bonhome, in his L'art De Penser, says
"Plusieurs diraient en periode quarre que quelques reflexions que fasse
l'esprit et quelques resolutions qu'il prenne pour corriger ses travers
le premier sentiment du coeur renverse tous ses projets. Mais il
n'appartient qu'a M. de la Rochefoucauld de dire tout en un mot que
l'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur."]
103.--Those who know their minds do not necessarily know their hearts.
104.--Men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge
rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never
judge rightly but at a distance.
105.--A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being.
A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it.
106.--To understand matters rightly we should understand their details,
and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always
superficial and imperfect.
107.--One kind of flirtation is to boast we never flirt.
108.--The head cannot long play the part of the heart.
109.--Youth changes its tastes by the warmth of its blood, age retains
its tastes by habit.
110.--Nothing is given so profusely as advice.
111.--The more we love a woman the more prone we are to hate her.
112.--The blemishes of the mind, like those of the face, increase by
age.
113.--There may be good but there are no pleasant marriages.
114.--We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and betrayed
by our friends, yet still we are often content to be thus served by
ourselves.
115.--It is as easy unwittingly to deceive oneself as to deceive others.
116.--Nothing is less sincere than the way of asking and giving advice.
The person asking seems to pay deference to the opinion of his friend,
while thinking in reality of making his friend approve his opinion and
be responsible for his conduct. The person giving the advice returns the
confidence placed in him by eager and disinterested zeal, in doing which
he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.
["I have often thought how ill-natured a maxim it was which on many
occasions I have heard from people of good understanding, 'That as to
what related to private conduct no one was ever the better for advice.'
But upon further examination I have resolved with myself that the maxim
might be admitted without any violent prejudice to mankind. For in
the manner advice was generally given there was no reason I thought to
wonder it should be so ill received, something there was which strangely
inverted the case, and made the giver to be the only gainer. For by what
I could observe in many occurrences of our lives, that which we called
giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdom
at another's expense. On the other side to be instructed or to receive
advice on the terms usually prescribed to us was little better than
tamely to afford another the occasion of raising himself a character
from our defects."--Lord Shaftesbury, Characteristics, i., 153.]
117.--The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares
that we know are set for us. We are never so easily deceived as when
trying to deceive.
118.--The intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception.
119.--We become so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that at
last we are disguised to ourselves.
["Those who quit their proper character{,} to assume what does not
belong to them, are{,} for the greater part{,} ignorant both of the
character they leave{,} and of the character they assume."--Burke,
{Reflections On The Revolution In France, (1790), Paragraph 19}.]
{The translators' incorrectly cite Thoughts On The Cause Of The Present
Discontents.}
120.--We often act treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed
motive.
121.--We frequently do good to enable us with impunity to do evil.
122.--If we conquer our passions it is more from their weakness than
from our strength.
123.--If we never flattered ourselves we should have but scant pleasure.
124.--The most deceitful persons spend their lives in blaming deceit, so
as to use it on some great occasion to promote some great interest.
125.--The daily employment of cunning marks a little mind, it generally
happens that those who resort to it in one respect to protect themselves
lay themselves open to attack in another.
["With that low cunning which in fools supplies, And amply, too, the
place of being wise." Churchill, Rosciad, 117.]
126.--Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.
127.--The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than
others.
128.--Too great cleverness is but deceptive delicacy, true delicacy is
the most substantial cleverness.
129.--It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived
by cunning men.
130.--Weakness is the only fault which cannot be cured.
131.--The smallest fault of women who give themselves up to love is to
love. [------"Faciunt graviora coactae Imperio sexus minimumque libidine
peccant." Juvenal, Sat. vi., 134.]
132.--It is far easier to be wise for others than to be so for oneself.
[Hence the proverb, "A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his
client."]
133.--The only good examples are those, that make us see the absurdity
of bad originals.
134.--We are never so ridiculous from the habits we have as from those
that we affect to have.
135.--We sometimes differ more widely from ourselves than we do from
others.
136.--There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard
it spoken of.
137.--When not prompted by vanity we say little.
138.--A man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing.
["Montaigne's vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself, and as
often happens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own failings than
of any foreign subject."-- Hallam, Literature Of Europe.]
139.--One of the reasons that we find so few persons rational and
agreeable in conversation is there is hardly a person who does not think
more of what he wants to say than of his answer to what is said. The
most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we
perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering
from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say. Instead
of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try
thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer
well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.
["An absent man can make but few observations, he can pursue nothing
steadily because his absences make him lose his way. They are very
disagreeable and hardly to be tolerated in old age, but in youth they
cannot be forgiven." --Lord Chesterfield, Letter 195.]
140.--If it was not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be
greatly at a loss.
141.--We often boast that we are never bored, but yet we are so
conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others.
142.--As it is the mark of great minds to say many things in a few
words, so it is that of little minds to use many words to say nothing.
["So much they talked, so very little said." Churchill, Rosciad, 550.
"Men who are unequal to the labour of discussing an argument or wish
to avoid it, are willing enough to suppose that much has been proved
because much has been said."-- Junius, Jan. 1769.]
143.--It is oftener by the estimation of our own feelings that we
exaggerate the good qualities of others than by their merit, and when we
praise them we wish to attract their praise.
144.--We do not like to praise, and we never praise without a
motive. Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies
differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as
the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and
knowledge.
145.--We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those
we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.
146.--Usually we only praise to be praised.
147.--Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure which is useful to
praise which is treacherous.
148.--Some reproaches praise; some praises reproach.
["Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering,
teach the rest to sneer." Pope {Essay On Man, (1733), Epistle To Dr.
Arbuthnot.}]
149.--The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice.
[The modesty which pretends to refuse praise is but in truth a desire to
be praised more highly. Edition 1665.]
150.--The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our
good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to
increase them.
151.--It is easier to govern others than to prevent being governed.
152.--If we never flattered ourselves the flattery of others would not
hurt us.
["Adulatione servilia fingebant securi de fragilitate credentis." Tacit.
Ann. xvi.]
153.--Nature makes merit but fortune sets it to work.
154.--Fortune cures us of many faults that reason could not.
155.--There are some persons who only disgust with their abilities,
there are persons who please even with their faults.
156.--There are persons whose only merit consists in saying and doing
stupid things at the right time, and who ruin all if they change their
manners.
157.--The fame of great men ought always to be estimated by the means
used to acquire it.
158.--Flattery is base coin to which only our vanity gives currency.
159.--It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the
management of them.
160.--However brilliant an action it should not be esteemed great unless
the result of a great motive.
161.--A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we
desire to estimate the effects that they produce.
162.--The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and
often acquires more reputation than real brilliancy.
163.--Numberless arts appear foolish whose secre{t} motives are most
wise and weighty.
164.--It is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for
those we do.
165.--Ability wins us the esteem of the true men, luck that of the
people.
166.--The world oftener rewards the appearance of merit than merit
itself.
167.--Avarice is more opposed to economy than to liberality.
168.--However deceitful hope may be, yet she carries us on pleasantly to
the end of life.
["Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die." Pope: Essay On Man,
Ep. ii.]
169.--Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue
often gets the praise.
["Quod segnitia erat sapientia vocaretur." Tacitus Hist. I.]
170.--If one acts rightly and honestly, it is difficult to decide
whether it is the effect of integrity or skill.
171.--As rivers are lost in the sea so are virtues in self.
172.--If we thoroughly consider the varied effects of indifference we
find we miscarry more in our duties than in our interests.
173.--There are different kinds of curiosity: one springs from interest,
which makes us desire to know everything that may be profitable to us;
another from pride, which springs from a desire of knowing what others
are ignorant of.
174.--It is far better to accustom our mind to bear the ills we have
than to speculate on those which may befall us.
["Rather bear th{ose} ills we have Than fly to others that we know not
of." {--Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I, Hamlet.}]
175.--Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which causes our
heart to attach itself to all the qualities of the person we love
in succession, sometimes giving the preference to one, sometimes to
another. This constancy is merely inconstancy fixed, and limited to the
same person.
176.--There are two kinds of constancy in love, one arising from
incessantly finding in the loved one fresh objects to love, the other
from regarding it as a point of honour to be constant.
177.--Perseverance is not deserving of blame or praise, as it is merely
the continuance of tastes and feelings which we can neither create or
destroy.
178.--What makes us like new studies is not so much the weariness we
have of the old or the wish for change as the desire to be admired by
those who know more than ourselves, and the hope of advantage over those
who know less.
179.--We sometimes complain of the levity of our friends to justify our
own by anticipation.
180.--Our repentance is not so much sorrow for the ill we have done as
fear of the ill that may happen to us.
181.--One sort of inconstancy springs from levity or weakness of mind,
and makes us accept everyone's opinion, and another more excusable comes
from a surfeit of matter.
182.--Vices enter into the composition of virtues as poison into that of
medicines. Prudence collects and blends the two and renders them useful
against the ills of life.
183.--For the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest
misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes.
184.--We admit our faults to repair by our sincerity the evil we have
done in the opinion of others.
[In the edition of 1665 this maxim stands as No. 200. We never admit our
faults except through vanity.]
185.--There are both heroes of evil and heroes of good.
[Ut alios industria ita hunc ignavia protulerat ad famam, habebaturque
non ganeo et profligator sed erudito luxu. --Tacit. Ann. xvi.]
186.--We do not despise all who have vices, but we do despise all who
have not virtues.
["If individuals have no virtues their vices may be of use to
us."--Junius, 5th Oct. 1771.]
187.--The name of virtue is as useful to our interest as that of vice.
188.--The health of the mind is not less uncertain than that of the
body, and when passions seem furthest removed we are no less in danger
of infection than of falling ill when we are well.
189.--It seems that nature has at man's birth fixed the bounds of his
virtues and vices.
190.--Great men should not have great faults.
191.--We may say vices wait on us in the course of our life as the
landlords with whom we successively lodge, and if we travelled the road
twice over I doubt if our experience would make us avoid them.
192.--When our vices leave us we flatter ourselves with the idea we have
left them.
193.--There are relapses in the diseases of the mind as in those of
the body; what we call a cure is often no more than an intermission or
change of disease.
194.--The defects of the mind are like the wounds of the body. Whatever
care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always
danger of their reopening.
195.--The reason which often prevents us abandoning a single vice is
having so many.
196.--We easily forget those faults which are known only to ourselves.
[Seneca says "Innocentem quisque se dicit respiciens testem non
conscientiam."]
197.--There are men of whom we can never believe evil without having
seen it. Yet there are very few in whom we should be surprised to see
it.
198.--We exaggerate the glory of some men to detract from that of
others, and we should praise Prince Conde and Marshal Turenne much less
if we did not want to blame them both.
[The allusion to Conde and Turenne gives the date at which these maxims
were published in 1665. Conde and Turenne were after their campaign with
the Imperialists at the height of their fame. It proves the truth of
the remark of Tacitus, "Populus neminem sine aemulo sinit."-- Tac. Ann.
xiv.]
199.--The desire to appear clever often prevents our being so.
200.--Virtue would not go far did not vanity escort her.
201.--He who thinks he has the power to content the world greatly
deceives himself, but he who thinks that the world cannot be content
with him deceives himself yet more.
202.--Falsely honest men are those who disguise their faults both
to themselves and others; truly honest men are those who know them
perfectly and confess them.
203.--He is really wise who is nettled at nothing.
204.--The coldness of women is a balance and burden they add to their
beauty.
205.--Virtue in woman is often the love of reputation and repose.
206.--He is a truly good man who desires always to bear the inspection
of good men.
207.--Folly follows us at all stages of life. If one appears wise 'tis
but because his folly is proportioned to his age and fortune.
208.--There are foolish people who know and who skilfully use their
folly.
209.--Who lives without folly is not so wise as he thinks.
210.--In growing old we become more foolish--and more wise.
211.--There are people who are like farces, which are praised but for a
time (however foolish and distasteful they may be).
[The last clause is added from Edition of 1665.]
212.--Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.
213.--Love of glory, fear of shame, greed of fortune, the desire to make
life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others are
often causes of that bravery so vaunted among men.
[Junius said of the Marquis of Granby, "He was as brave as a total
absence of all feeling and reflection could make him."--21st Jan. 1769.]
214.--Valour in common soldiers is a perilous method of earning their
living.
["Men venture necks to gain a fortune, The soldier does it ev{'}ry day,
(Eight to the week) for sixpence pay." {--Samuel Butler,} Hudibras, Part
II., canto i., line 512.]
215.--Perfect bravery and sheer cowardice are two extremes rarely found.
The space between them is vast, and embraces all other sorts of courage.
The difference between them is not less than between faces and tempers.
Men will freely expose themselves at the beginning of an action, and
relax and be easily discouraged if it should last. Some are content to
satisfy worldly honour, and beyond that will do little else. Some are
not always equally masters of their timidity. Others allow themselves
to be overcome by panic; others charge because they dare not remain at
their posts. Some may be found whose courage is strengthened by small
perils, which prepare them to face greater dangers. Some will dare a
sword cut and flinch from a bullet; others dread bullets little and fear
to fight with swords. These varied kinds of courage agree in this, that
night, by increasing fear and concealing gallant or cowardly actions,
allows men to spare themselves. There is even a more general discretion
to be observed, for we meet with no man who does all he would have done
if he were assured of getting off scot-free; so that it is certain that
the fear of death does somewhat subtract from valour.
[See also "Table Talk of Napoleon," who agrees with this, so far as to
say that few, but himself, had a two o'clock of the morning valour.]
216.--Perfect valour is to do without witnesses what one would do before
all the world.
["It is said of untrue valours that some men's valours are in the eyes
of them that look on."--Bacon, Advancement Of Learning{, (1605), Book I,
Section II, paragraph 5}.]
217.--Intrepidity is an extraordinary strength of soul which raises it
above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which the sight of great
perils can arouse in it: by this strength heroes maintain a calm
aspect and preserve their reason and liberty in the most surprising and
terrible accidents.
218.--Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
[So Massillon, in one of his sermons, "Vice pays homage to virtue in
doing honour to her appearance."
So Junius, writing to the Duke of Grafton, says, "You have done as much
mischief to the community as Machiavel, if Machiavel had not known that
an appearance of morals and religion are useful in society."--28 Sept.
1771.]
219.--Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor,
few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make
the design for which they expose themselves succeed.
220.--Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and
women chaste.
["Vanity bids all her sons be brave and all her daughters chaste and
courteous. But why do we need her instruction?"--Sterne, Sermons.]
221.--We do not wish to lose life; we do wish to gain glory, and this
makes brave men show more tact and address in avoiding death, than
rogues show in preserving their fortunes.
222.--Few persons on the first approach of age do not show wherein their
body, or their mind, is beginning to fail.
223.--Gratitude is as the good faith of merchants: it holds commerce
together; and we do not pay because it is just to pay debts, but because
we shall thereby more easily find people who will lend.
224.--All those who pay the debts of gratitude cannot thereby flatter
themselves that they are grateful.
225.--What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the
pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the
benefit.
["The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring
benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be
returned."--Junius's Letter To The King.]
226.--Too great a hurry to discharge of an obligation is a kind of
ingratitude.
227.--Lucky people are bad hands at correcting their faults; they always
believe that they are right when fortune backs up their vice or folly.
["The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy
impute all their success to prudence and merit."--Swift, Thoughts On
Various Subjects]
228.--Pride will not owe, self-love will not pay.
229.--The good we have received from a man should make us excuse the
wrong he does us.
230.--Nothing is so infectious as example, and we never do great good or
evil without producing the like. We imitate good actions by emulation,
and bad ones by the evil of our nature, which shame imprisons until
example liberates.
231.--It is great folly to wish only to be wise.
232.--Whatever pretext we give to our afflictions it is always interest
or vanity that causes them.
233.--In afflictions there are various kinds of hypocrisy. In one, under
the pretext of weeping for one dear to us we bemoan ourselves; we
regret her good opinion of us, we deplore the loss of our comfort, our
pleasure, our consideration. Thus the dead have the credit of tears
shed for the living. I affirm 'tis a kind of hypocrisy which in these
afflictions deceives itself. There is another kind not so innocent
because it imposes on all the world, that is the grief of those who
aspire to the glory of a noble and immortal sorrow. After Time,
which absorbs all, has obliterated what sorrow they had, they still
obstinately obtrude their tears, their sighs their groans, they wear a
solemn face, and try to persuade others by all their acts, that their
grief will end only with their life. This sad and distressing vanity is
commonly found in ambitious women. As their sex closes to them all paths
to glory, they strive to render themselves celebrated by showing an
inconsolable affliction. There is yet another kind of tears arising from
but small sources, which flow easily and cease as easily. One weeps to
achieve a reputation for tenderness, weeps to be pitied, weeps to be
bewept, in fact one weeps to avoid the disgrace of not weeping!
["In grief the {Pleasure} is still uppermost{;} and the affliction we
suffer has no resemblance to absolute pain which is always odious, and
which we endeavour to shake off as soon as possible."--Burke, Sublime
And Beautiful{, (1756), Part I, Sect. V}.]
234.--It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so
obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken,
and we do not want to be the last.
235.--We are easily consoled at the misfortunes of our friends when they
enable us to prove our tenderness for them.
236.--It would seem that even self-love may be the dupe of goodness
and forget itself when we work for others. And yet it is but taking the
shortest way to arrive at its aim, taking usury under the pretext of
giving, in fact winning everybody in a subtle and delicate manner.
237.--No one should be praised for his goodness if he has not strength
enough to be wicked. All other goodness is but too often an idleness or
powerlessness of will.
238.--It is not so dangerous to do wrong to most men, as to do them too
much good.
239.--Nothing flatters our pride so much as the confidence of the great,
because we regard it as the result of our worth, without remembering
that generally 'tis but vanity, or the inability to keep a secret.
240.--We may say of conformity as distinguished from beauty, that it is
a symmetry which knows no rules, and a secret harmony of features both
one with each other and with the colour and appearance of the person.
241.--Flirtation is at the bottom of woman's nature, although all do not
practise it, some being restrained by fear, others by sense.
["By nature woman is a flirt, but her flirting changes both in the mode
and object according to her opinions."-- Rousseau, Emile.]
242.--We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.
243.--Few things are impossible in themselves; application to make them
succeed fails us more often than the means.
244.--Sovereign ability consists in knowing the value of things.
245.--There is great ability in knowing how to conceal one's ability.
["You have accomplished a great stroke in diplomacy when you have made
others think that you have only very average abilities."--La Bruyere.]
246.--What seems generosity is often disguised ambition, that despises
small to run after greater interest.
247.--The fidelity of most men is merely an invention of self-love
to win confidence; a method to place us above others and to render us
depositaries of the most important matters.
248.--Magnanimity despises all, to win all.
249.--There is no less eloquence in the voice, in the eyes and in the
air of a speaker than in his choice of words.
250.--True eloquence consists in saying all that should be, not all that
could be said.
251.--There are people whose faults become them, others whose very
virtues disgrace them.
["There are faults which do him honour, and virtues that disgrace
him."--Junius, Letter Of 28th May, 1770.]
252.--It is as common to change one's tastes, as it is uncommon to
change one's inclinations.
253.--Interest sets at work all sorts of virtues and vices.
254.--Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant
others. It is one of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and
truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well
disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the
form of humility.
["Grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business."--Junius,
Letter To The Duke Of Grafton.
"He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility,
And the devil was pleased, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes
humility." Southey, Devil's Walk.]
{There are numerous corrections necessary for this quotation; I will
keep the original above so you can compare the correct passages:
"He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility,
And he owned with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes
humility." --Southey, Devil's Walk, Stanza 8.
"And the devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes
humility." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts}
255.--All feelings have their peculiar tone of voice, gestures and
looks, and this harmony, as it is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant,
makes people agreeable or disagreeable.
256.--In all professions we affect a part and an appearance to seem what
we wish to be. Thus the world is merely composed of actors.
["All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely
players."--Shakespeare, As You Like It{, Act II, Scene VII, Jaques}.
"Life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should
preserve his consistency to the last."--Junius.]
257.--Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body invented to conceal
the want of mind.
["Gravity is the very essence of imposture."--Shaftesbury,
Characteristics, p. 11, vol. I. "The very essence of gravity is design,
and consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the world
for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth, and that with all its
pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit
had long ago defined it--a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the
defects of the mind."--Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. I., chap. ii.]
258.--Good taste arises more from judgment than wit.
259.--The pleasure of love is in loving, we are happier in the passion
we feel than in that we inspire.
260.--Civility is but a desire to receive civility, and to be esteemed
polite.
261.--The usual education of young people is to inspire them with a
second self-love.
262.--There is no passion wherein self-love reigns so powerfully as in
love, and one is always more ready to sacrifice the peace of the loved
one than his own.
263.--What we call liberality is often but the vanity of giving, which
we like more than that we give away.
264.--Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in the ills of others.
It is a delicate foresight of the troubles into which we may fall. We
help others that on like occasions we may be helped ourselves, and these
services which we render, are in reality benefits we confer on ourselves
by anticipation.
["Grief for the calamity of another is pity, and ariseth from the
imagination that a like calamity may befal himself{;} and therefore is
called compassion."--Hobbes' Leviathan{, (1651), Part I, Chapter VI}.]
265.--A narrow mind begets obstinacy, and we do not easily believe what
we cannot see.
["Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong." Dryden, Absalom And
Achitophel{, line 547}.]
266.--We deceive ourselves if we believe that there are violent
passions like ambition and love that can triumph over others. Idleness,
languishing as she is, does not often fail in being mistress; she
usurps authority over all the plans and actions of life; imperceptibly
consuming and destroying both passions and virtues.
267.--A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined
it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and
we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.
268.--We credit judges with the meanest motives, and yet we desire our
reputation and fame should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all,
either from their jealousy or pre-occupation or want of intelligence,
opposed to us--and yet 'tis only to make these men decide in our favour
that we peril in so many ways both our peace and our life.
269.--No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
270.--One honour won is a surety for more.
271.--Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.
["The best of life is but intoxication."--{Lord Byron, } Don Juan{,
Canto II, stanza 179}. In the 1st Edition, 1665, the maxim finishes
with--"it is the fever of health, the folly of reason."]
272.--Nothing should so humiliate men who have deserved great praise, as
the care they have taken to acquire it by the smallest means.
273.--There are persons of whom the world approves who have no merit
beyond the vices they use in the affairs of life.
274.--The beauty of novelty is to love as the flower to the fruit; it
lends a lustre which is easily lost, but which never returns.
275.--Natural goodness, which boasts of being so apparent, is often
smothered by the least interest.
276.--Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as
the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.
277.--Women often think they love when they do not love. The business of
a love affair, the emotion of mind that sentiment induces, the natural
bias towards the pleasure of being loved, the difficulty of refusing,
persuades them that they have real passion when they have but
flirtation.
["And if in fact she takes a {"}Grande Passion{"}, It is a very serious
thing indeed: Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion, Coquetry,
or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash
on. Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the {Tenth} instance will
be a tornado, For there's no saying what they will or may do." {--Lord
Byron, }Don Juan, canto xii. stanza 77.]
278.--What makes us so often discontented with those who transact
business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their
friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the
honour of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.
279.--When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is
often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit.
280.--The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the
envy we bear to those who are established.
281.--Pride, which inspires, often serves to moderate envy.
282.--Some disguised lies so resemble truth, that we should judge badly
were we not deceived.
283.--Sometimes there is not less ability in knowing how to use than in
giving good advice.
284.--There are wicked people who would be much less dangerous if they
were wholly without goodness.
285.--Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one
can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving
praise.
286.--It is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really
ceased to love.
287.--Fertility of mind does not furnish us with so many resources on
the same matter, as the lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each
thing our imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning
which is the best.
288.--There are matters and maladies which at certain times remedies
only serve to make worse; true skill consists in knowing when it is
dangerous to use them.
289.--Affected simplicity is refined imposture.
[Domitianus simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine studium litterarum et
amorem carminum simulabat quo velaret animum et fratris aemulationi
subduceretur.--Tacitus, Ann. iv.]
290.--There are as many errors of temper as of mind.
291.--Man's merit, like the crops, has its season.
292.--One may say of temper as of many buildings; it has divers aspects,
some agreeable, others disagreeable.
293.--Moderation cannot claim the merit of opposing and overcoming
Ambition: they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and
sloth of the soul, Ambition its activity and heat.
294.--We always like those who admire us, we do not always like those
whom we admire.
295.--It is well that we know not all our wishes.
296.--It is difficult to love those we do not esteem, but it is no less
so to love those whom we esteem much more than ourselves.
297.--Bodily temperaments have a common course and rule which
imperceptibly affect our will. They advance in combination, and
successively exercise a secret empire over us, so that, without our
perceiving it, they become a great part of all our actions.
298.--The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving
greater benefits.
[Hence the common proverb "Gratitude is merely a lively sense of favors
to come."]
299.--Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many
people show gratitude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not
show ingratitude for great favours.
300.--There are follies as catching as infections.
301.--Many people despise, but few know how to bestow wealth.
302.--Only in things of small value we usually are bold enough not to
trust to appearances.
303.--Whatever good quality may be imputed to us, we ourselves find
nothing new in it.
304.--We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we
bore.
305.--Interest which is accused of all our misdeeds often should be
praised for our good deeds.
306.--We find very few ungrateful people when we are able to confer
favours.
307.--It is as proper to be boastful alone as it is ridiculous to be so
in company.
308.--Moderation is made a virtue to limit the ambition of the great;
to console ordinary people for their small fortune and equally small
ability.
309.--There are persons fated to be fools, who commit follies not only
by choice, but who are forced by fortune to do so.
310.--Sometimes there are accidents in our life the skilful extrication
from which demands a little folly.
311.--If there be men whose folly has never appeared, it is because it
has never been closely looked for.
312.--Lovers are never tired of each other,--they always speak of
themselves.
313.--How is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least
triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how
often we have told it to the same person?
["Old men who yet retain the memory of things past, and forget how often
they have told them, are most tedious companions."--Montaigne, {Essays,
Book I, Chapter IX}.]
314.--The extreme delight we take in talking of ourselves should warn us
that it is not shared by those who listen.
315.--What commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart
to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of
ourselves.
316.--Weak persons cannot be sincere.
317.--'Tis a small misfortune to oblige an ungrateful man; but it is
unbearable to be obliged by a scoundrel.
318.--We may find means to cure a fool of his folly, but there are none
to set straight a cross-grained spirit.
319.--If we take the liberty to dwell on their faults we cannot
long preserve the feelings we should hold towards our friends and
benefactors.
320.--To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is but to
reproach them with impunity.
["Praise undeserved is satire in disguise," quoted by Pope from a poem
which has not survived, "The Garland," by Mr. Broadhurst. "In some cases
exaggerated or inappropriate praise becomes the most severe satire."--
Scott, Woodstock.]
321.--We are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us
more than we desire.
322.--Those only are despicable who fear to be despised.
323.--Our wisdom is no less at the mercy of Fortune than our goods.
324.--There is more self-love than love in jealousy.
325.--We often comfort ourselves by the weakness of evils, for which
reason has not the strength to console us.
326.--Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour itself.
["No," says a commentator, "Ridicule may do harm, but it cannot
dishonour; it is vice which confers dishonour."]
327.--We own to small faults to persuade others that we have not great
ones.
328.--Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.
329.--We believe, sometimes, that we hate flattery --we only dislike the
method.
["{But} when I tell him he hates flatter{ers}, He says he does, being
then most flattered." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar {,Act II, Scene I,
Decius}.]
330.--We pardon in the degree that we love.
331.--It is more difficult to be faithful to a mistress when one is
happy, than when we are ill-treated by her.
[Si qua volet regnare diu contemnat amantem.--Ovid, Amores, ii. 19.]
332.--Women do not know all their powers of flirtation.
333.--Women cannot be completely severe unless they hate.
334.--Women can less easily resign flirtations than love.
335.--In love deceit almost always goes further than mistrust.
336.--There is a kind of love, the excess of which forbids jealousy.
337.--There are certain good qualities as there are senses, and those
who want them can neither perceive nor understand them.
338.--When our hatred is too bitter it places us below those whom we
hate.
339.--We only appreciate our good or evil in proportion to our
self-love.
340.--The wit of most women rather strengthens their folly than their
reason.
["Women have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid
reasoning and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it,
and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty hours
together."--Lord Chesterfield, Letter 129.]
341.--The heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness
of age.
342.--The accent of our native country dwells in the heart and mind as
well as on the tongue.
343.--To be a great man one should know how to profit by every phase of
fortune.
344.--Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance
discovers.
345.--Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves.
346.--If a woman's temper is beyond control there can be no control of
the mind or heart.
347.--We hardly find any persons of good sense, save those who agree
with us.
["That was excellently observed, say I, when I read an author when his
opinion agrees with mine."--Swift, Thoughts On Various Subjects.]
348.--When one loves one doubts even what one most believes.
349.--The greatest miracle of love is to eradicate flirtation.
350.--Why we hate with so much bitterness those who deceive us is
because they think themselves more clever than we are.
["I could pardon all his (Louis XI.'s) deceit, but I cannot forgive
his supposing me capable of the gross folly of being duped by his
professions."--Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward.]
351.--We have much trouble to break with one, when we no longer are in
love.
352.--We almost always are bored with persons with whom we should not be
bored.
353.--A gentleman may love like a lunatic, but not like a beast.
354.--There are certain defects which well mounted glitter like virtue
itself.
355.--Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater
than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our
regret.
356.--Usually we only praise heartily those who admire us.
357.--Little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds
see all and are not even hurt.
358.--Humility is the true proof of Christian virtues; without it we
retain all our faults, and they are only covered by pride to hide them
from others, and often from ourselves.
359.--Infidelities should extinguish love, and we ought not to be
jealous when we have cause to be so. No persons escape causing jealousy
who are worthy of exciting it.
360.--We are more humiliated by the least infidelity towards us, than by
our greatest towards others.
361.--Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with
it.
362.--Most women do not grieve so much for the death of their lovers for
love's-sake, as to show they were worthy of being beloved.
363.--The evils we do to others give us less pain than those we do to
ourselves.
364.--We well know that it is bad taste to talk of our wives; but we do
not so well know that it is the same to speak of ourselves.
365.--There are virtues which degenerate into vices when they arise from
Nature, and others which when acquired are never perfect. For example,
reason must teach us to manage our estate and our confidence, while
Nature should have given us goodness and valour.
366.--However we distrust the sincerity of those whom we talk with, we
always believe them more sincere with us than with others.
367.--There are few virtuous women who are not tired of their part.
["Every woman is at heart a rake."--Pope. Moral Essays, ii.]
368.--The greater number of good women are like concealed treasures,
safe as no one has searched for them.
369.--The violences we put upon ourselves to escape love are often more
cruel than the cruelty of those we love.
370.--There are not many cowards who know the whole of their fear.
371.--It is generally the fault of the loved one not to perceive when
love ceases.
372.--Most young people think they are natural when they are only
boorish and rude.
373.--Some tears after having deceived others deceive ourselves.
374.--If we think we love a woman for love of herself we are greatly
deceived.
375.--Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.
376.--Envy is destroyed by true friendship, flirtation by true love.
377.--The greatest mistake of penetration is not to have fallen short,
but to have gone too far.
378.--We may bestow advice, but we cannot inspire the conduct.
379.--As our merit declines so also does our taste.
380.--Fortune makes visible our virtues or our vices, as light does
objects.
381.--The struggle we undergo to remain faithful to one we love is
little better than infidelity.
382.--Our actions are like the rhymed ends of blank verses (Bouts-Rimes)
where to each one puts what construction he pleases.
[The Bouts-Rimes was a literary game popular in the 17th and 18th
centuries--the rhymed words at the end of a line being given for others
to fill up. Thus Horace Walpole being given, "brook, why, crook, I,"
returned the burlesque verse-- "I sits with my toes in a Brook, And
if any one axes me Why? I gies 'em a rap with my Crook, 'Tis constancy
makes me, ses I."]
383.--The desire of talking about ourselves, and of putting our
faults in the light we wish them to be seen, forms a great part of our
sincerity.
384.--We should only be astonished at still being able to be astonished.
385.--It is equally as difficult to be contented when one has too much
or too little love.
386.--No people are more often wrong than those who will not allow
themselves to be wrong.
387.--A fool has not stuff in him to be good.
388.--If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them
totter.
389.--What makes the vanity of others unsupportable is that it wounds
our own.
390.--We give up more easily our interest than our taste.
391.--Fortune appears so blind to none as to those to whom she has done
no good.
392.--We should manage fortune like our health, enjoy it when it is
good, be patient when it is bad, and never resort to strong remedies but
in an extremity.
393.--Awkwardness sometimes disappears in the camp, never in the court.
394.--A man is often more clever than one other, but not than all
others.
["Singuli decipere ac decipi possunt, nemo omnes, omnes neminem
fefellerunt."--Pliny{ the Younger, Panegyricus, LXII}.]
395.--We are often less unhappy at being deceived by one we loved, than
on being deceived.
396.--We keep our first lover for a long time--if we do not get a
second.
397.--We have not the courage to say generally that we have no faults,
and that our enemies have no good qualities; but in fact we are not far
from believing so.
398.--Of all our faults that which we most readily admit is idleness: we
believe that it makes all virtues ineffectual, and that without utterly
destroying, it at least suspends their operation.
399.--There is a kind of greatness which does not depend upon fortune:
it is a certain manner what distinguishes us, and which seems to destine
us for great things; it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves;
it is by this quality that we gain the deference of other men, and it is
this which commonly raises us more above them, than birth, rank, or even
merit itself.
400.--There may be talent without position, but there is no position
without some kind of talent.
401.--Rank is to merit what dress is to a pretty woman.
402.--What we find the least of in flirtation is love.
403.--Fortune sometimes uses our faults to exalt us, and there are
tiresome people whose deserts would be ill rewarded if we did not desire
to purchase their absence.
404.--It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents
and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power
of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and
more perfect than art could possibly do.
405.--We reach quite inexperienced the different stages of life, and
often, in spite of the number of our years, we lack experience.
["To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship which
illumine only the track it has passed."-- Coleridge.]
406.--Flirts make it a point of honour to be jealous of their lovers, to
conceal their envy of other women.
407.--It may well be that those who have trapped us by their tricks do
not seem to us so foolish as we seem to ourselves when trapped by the
tricks of others.
408.--The most dangerous folly of old persons who have been loveable is
to forget that they are no longer so.
["Every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome. The
suspicion of age no woman, let her be ever so old, forgives."--Lord
Chesterfield, Letter 129.]
409.--We should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world
only saw the motives which caused them.
410.--The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our faults to a
friend, but to show him his own.
4ll.--We have few faults which are not far more excusable than the means
we adopt to hide them.
412.--Whatever disgrace we may have deserved, it is almost always in our
power to re-establish our character.
["This is hardly a period at which the most irregular character may not
be redeemed. The mistakes of one sin find a retreat in patriotism, those
of the other in devotion." --Junius, Letter To The King.]
413.--A man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit.
[According to Segrais this maxim was a hit at Racine and Boileau, who,
despising ordinary conversation, talked incessantly of literature; but
there is some doubt as to Segrais' statement.--Aime Martin.]
414.--Idiots and lunatics see only their own wit.
415.--Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity.
416.--The vivacity which increases in old age is not far removed from
folly.
["How ill {white} hairs become {a} fool and jester."-- Shakespeare,
King Henry IV, Part II, Act. V, Scene V, King}.
"Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can
grey hairs make folly venerable, and is there no period to be reserved
for meditation or retirement."-- Junius, To The Duke Of Bedford, 19th
Sept. 1769.]
417.--In love the quickest is always the best cure.
418.--Young women who do not want to appear flirts, and old men who
do not want to appear ridiculous, should not talk of love as a matter
wherein they can have any interest.
419.--We may seem great in a post beneath our capacity, but we oftener
seem little in a post above it.
420.--We often believe we have constancy in misfortune when we have
nothing but debasement, and we suffer misfortunes without regarding
them as cowards who let themselves be killed from fear of defending
themselves.
421.--Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
422.--All passions make us commit some faults, love alone makes us
ridiculous.
["In love we all are fools alike."--Gay{, The Beggar's Opera, (1728),