Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims Part 5

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 compa.s.sing 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 ingrat.i.tude 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 fa.s.se 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 p.r.o.ne 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.]