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Reflections; Or Sentences and Moral Maxims

F >> Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld >> Reflections; Or Sentences and Moral Maxims




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 wander-
ing from what is said and desire to return to what they
want to say. Instead of considering that the worst
way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly
to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to
answer well are some of the greatest charms we 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 ar-
gument or wish to avoid it, are willing enough to suppose
that much has been proved because much has been said.”--
Junius, JAN. 1769.]

143.--It is oftener by the estimation of our own
feelings that we exaggerate the good qualities of others
than by their merit, and when we praise them we wish
to attract their praise.

144.--We do not like to praise, and we never praise
without a motive. Praise is flattery, artful, hidden,
delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises
and him who is praised. The one takes it as the re-
ward of merit, the other bestows it to show his im-
partiality and knowledge.

145.--We often select envenomed praise which, by
a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could
not have shown by other means.

146.--Usually we only praise to be praised.

147.--Few are sufficiently wise to prefer censure
which is useful to praise which is treacherous.

148.--Some reproaches praise; some praises re-
proach.

[“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.”
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 cre-
dentis.” 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 advan-
tage 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 quali-
ties of the person we love in succession, sometimes
giving the preference to one, sometimes to another.
This constancy is merely inconstancy fixed, and limited
to the same person.

176.--There are two kinds of constancy in love, one
arising from incessantly finding in the loved one fresh
objects to love, the other from regarding it as a point
of honour to be constant.

177.--Perseverance is not deserving of blame or
praise, as it is merely the continuance of tastes and
feelings which we can neither create or destroy.

178.--What makes us like new studies is not so
much the weariness we have of the old or the wish
for change as the desire to be admired by those who
know more than ourselves, and the hope of advantage
over those who know less.

179.--We sometimes complain of the levity of 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 infec-
tion 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 abandon-
ing a single vice is having so many.

196.--We easily forget those faults which are known
only to ourselves.

[Seneca says “Innocentem quisque se dicit respiciens
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 Condé and Marshal Turenne much less if we
did not want to blame them both.

[The allusion to Condé and Turenne gives the date at
which these maxims were published in 1665. Condé 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 bur-
den they add to their beauty.

205.--Virtue in woman is often the love of reputa-
tion and repose.

206.--He is a truly good man who desires always to
bear the inspection of good men.

207.--Folly follows us at all stages of life. If one
appears wise 'tis but because his folly is proportioned
to his age and fortune.

208.--There are foolish people who know and who
skilfully use their folly.

209.--Who lives without folly is not so wise as 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 dis-
tasteful they may be).

[The last clause is added from Edition of 1665.]

212.--Most people judge men only by success or by
fortune.

213.--Love of glory, fear of shame, greed of fortune,
the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and
the wish to depreciate others are often causes of that
bravery so vaunted among men.

[Junius said of the Marquis of Granby, “He was as
brave as a total absence of all feeling and reflection could
make him.”--21st Jan. 1769.]

214.--Valour in common soldiers is a perilous
method of earning their living.

[“Men venture necks to gain a fortune,
The soldier does it 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 conceal-
ing gallant or cowardly actions, allows men to spare
themselves. There is even a more general discretion
to be observed, for we meet with no man who does all
he would have done if he were assured of getting off
scot-free; so that it is certain that the fear of death
does somewhat subtract from valour.

[See also “Table Talk of Napoleon,” who agrees with
this, so far as to say that few, but himself, had a two
o'clock of the morning valour.]

216.--Perfect valour is to do without witnesses what
one would do before all the world.

[“It is said of untrue valours that some men's valours are
in the eyes of them that look on.”--Bacon, ADVANCEMENT
OF LEARNING{, (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 sur-
prising and terrible accidents.

218.--Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

[So Massillon, in one of his sermons, “Vice pays homage
to virtue in doing honour to her appearance.”

So Junius, writing to the Duke of Grafton, says, “You
have done as much mischief to the community as Machia-
vel, if Machiavel had not known that an appearance of
morals and religion are useful in society.”--28 Sept. 1771.]

219.--Most men expose themselves in battle enough
to save their 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 instruc-
tion?”--Sterne, SERMONS.]

221.--We do not wish to lose life; we do wish to
gain glory, and this makes brave men show more tact
and address in avoiding death, than rogues show in
preserving their fortunes.

222.--Few persons on the first approach of age do
not show wherein their body, or their mind, is begin-
ning to fail.

223.--Gratitude is as the good faith of merchants:
it holds commerce together; and we do not pay be-
cause it is just to pay debts, but because we shall
thereby more easily find people who will lend.

224.--All those who pay the debts of gratitude can-
not thereby flatter themselves that they are grateful.

225.--What makes false reckoning, as regards gra-
titude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver
cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.

[“The first foundation of friendship is not the power of
conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are
received, and may be returned.”--Junius's LETTER TO THE
KING.]

226.--Too great a hurry to discharge of an obliga-
tion is a kind of ingratitude.

227.--Lucky people are bad hands at correcting
their faults; they always believe that they are right
when fortune backs up their vice or folly.

[“The power of fortune is confessed only by the misera-
ble, for the happy impute all their success to prudence 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 hypo-
crisy. In one, under the pretext of weeping for one
dear to us we bemoan ourselves; we regret her good
opinion of us, we deplore the loss of our comfort, our
pleasure, our consideration. Thus the dead have the
credit of tears shed for the living. I affirm 'tis a kind
of hypocrisy which in these afflictions deceives itself.
There is another kind not so innocent because it im-
poses on all the world, that is the grief of those who
aspire to the glory of a noble and immortal 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 show-
ing an inconsolable affliction. There is yet another
kind of tears arising from but small sources, which
flow easily and cease as easily. One weeps to achieve
a reputation for tenderness, weeps to be pitied, weeps
to be bewept, in fact one weeps to avoid the disgrace
of not weeping!

[“In grief the {PLEASURE} is still uppermost{;} and the afflic-
tion we suffer has no resemblance to absolute pain which
is always odious, and which we endeavour to shake off as
soon as possible.”--Burke, SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL{, (1756),
Part I, Sect. V}.]

234.--It is more often from pride than from igno-
rance that we are so obstinately opposed to current
opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do
not want to be the last.

235.--We are easily consoled at the misfortunes of
our friends when they enable us to prove our tender-
ness for them.

236.--It would seem that even self-love may be the
dupe of goodness and forget itself when we work for
others. And yet it is but taking the shortest way to
arrive at its aim, taking usury under the pretext of
giving, in fact winning everybody in a subtle and de-
licate manner.

237.--No one should be praised for his goodness if
he has not strength enough to be wicked. All other
goodness is but too often an idleness or powerlessness
of will.

238.--It is not so dangerous to do wrong to most
men, as to do them too much good.

239.--Nothing flatters our pride so much as the
confidence of the great, because we regard it as the
result of our worth, without remembering that gene-
rally 'tis but vanity, or the inability to keep a secret.

240.--We may say of conformity as distinguished
from beauty, that it is a symmetry which knows no
rules, and a secret harmony of features both one with
each other and with the colour and appearance of the
person.

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 con-
ceal one's ability.

[“You have accomplished a great stroke in diplomacy
when you have made others think that you have only very
average abilities.”--LA BRUYÈRE.]

246.--What seems generosity is often disguised am-
bition, that despises small to run after greater inte-
rest.

247.--The fidelity of most men is merely an inven-
tion of self-love to win confidence; a method to place
us above others and to render us depositaries of the
most important matters.

248.--Magnanimity despises all, to win all.

249.--There is no less eloquence 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 de-
vices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride
transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so
well disguised and more able to deceive than when it
hides itself under the form of humility.

[“Grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for busi-
ness.”--Junius, LETTER TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

“He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility,
And the devil was pleased, for his darling sin
Is the pride that apes humility.”
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 ap-
pearance 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.”--Shaftes-
bury, CHARACTERISTICS, p. 11, vol. I. “The very essence of
gravity is design, and consequently deceit; a taught trick
to gain credit with the world for more sense and know-
ledge than a man was worth, and that with all its preten-
sions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French
wit had long ago defined it--a mysterious carriage of the
body to cover the defects of the mind.”--Sterne, 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 hap-
pier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire.

260.--Civility is but a desire to receive civility, and
to be esteemed polite.

261.--The usual education of young people is to in-
spire them with a second self-love.

262.--There is no passion wherein self-love reigns
so powerfully as in love, and one is always more ready
to sacrifice the peace of the loved one than his own.

263.--What we call liberality is often but the vanity
of giving, which we like more than that we give away.

264.--Pity is often a reflection of our own evils in
the ills of others. It is a delicate foresight of the
troubles into which we may fall. We help others
that on like occasions we may be helped ourselves,
and these services which we render, are in reality
benefits we confer on ourselves by anticipation.

[“GRIEF for the calamity of another is pity, and ariseth
from the imagination that a like calamity may befal him-
self{;} and therefore is called compassion.”--HOBBES' LEVIA-
THAN{, (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; im-
perceptibly consuming and destroying both passions
and virtues.

267.--A quickness in believing evil without having
sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and
laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not
wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.

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