Maxims and Reflections Part 4

65

Generosity wins favour for every one, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.

66

Before the storm breaks, the dust rises violently for the last time--the dust that is soon to be laid forever.

67

Men do not come to know one another easily, even with the best will and the best purpose. And then ill-will comes in and distorts everything.

68

We should know one another better if one man were not so anxious to put himself on an equality with another.

69

Eminent men are therefore in a worse plight than others; for, as we cannot compare ourselves with them, we are on the watch for them.

70

In the world the point is, not to know men, but at any given moment to be cleverer than the man who stands before you. You can prove this at every fair and from every charlatan.

71

Not everywhere where there is water, are there frogs; but where you have frogs, there you will find water.

72

Error is quite right as long as we are young, but we must not carry it on with us into our old age.

Whims and eccentricities that grow stale are all useless, rank nonsense.

73

In the formation of species Nature gets, as it were, into a _cul-de-sac_; she cannot make her way through, and is disinclined to turn back. Hence the stubbornness of national character.

74

Every one has something in his nature which, if he were to express it openly, would of necessity give offence.

75

If a man thinks about his physical or moral condition, he generally finds that he is ill.

76

Nature asks that a man should sometimes be stupefied without going to sleep; hence the pleasure in the smoking of tobacco, the drinking of brandy, the use of opiates.

77

The man who is up and doing should see to it that what he does is right.

Whether or not right is done, is a matter which should not trouble him.

78

Many a man knocks about on the wall with his hammer, and believes that he hits the right nail on the head every time.

79

Painting and tattooing of the body is a return to animalism.

80

History-writing is a way of getting rid of the past.

81

What a man does not understand, he does not possess.

82

Not every one who has a pregnant thought delivered to him becomes productive; it probably makes him think of something with which he is quite familiar.

83

Favour, as a symbol of sovereignty, is exercised by weak men.

84

Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.

85

Memory may vanish so long as at the moment judgment does not fail you.

86

No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pa.s.s judgment on itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time.

87

Instead of contradicting my words people ought to act in my spirit.

88

Those who oppose intellectual truths do but stir up the fire, and the cinders fly about and burn what they had else not touched.