Maxims and Reflections Part 6

114

I pity those who make much ado about the transitory nature of all things and are lost in the contemplation of earthly vanity: are we not here to make the transitory permanent? This we can do only if we know how to value both.

115

A rainbow which lasts a quarter of an hour is looked at no more.

116

It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries,--to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.

117

Faith is private capital, kept in one's own house. There are public savings-banks and loan-offices, which supply individuals in their day of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.

118

Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false.

119

During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest must join in submitting itself.

120

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes that we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

121

'The wise have much in common with one another.' _aeschylus_.

122

The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not exactly hit upon the right way of saying it.

123

Because a man speaks, he thinks he is able to speak about language.

124

One need only grow old to become gentler in one's judgments. I see no fault committed which I could not have committed myself.

125

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks.

126

Why should those who are happy expect one who is miserable to die before them in a graceful att.i.tude, like the gladiator before the Roman mob?

127

Some one asked Timon about the education of his children. 'Let them,' he said, 'be instructed in that which they will never understand.'

128

There are people whom I wish well, and would that I could wish better.

129

By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still loved.

130

Hatred is active displeasure, envy pa.s.sive. We need not wonder that envy turns so soon to hatred.

131

There is something magical in rhythm; it even makes us believe that we possess the sublime.

132

Dilettantism treated seriously, and knowledge pursued mechanically, end by becoming pedantry.

133

No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the master,--that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art is helped.

134

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been recognised by others.

135

Scholars are generally malignant when they are refuting others; and if they think a man is making a mistake, they straightway look upon him as their mortal enemy.

136

Beauty can never really understand itself.

III

137