Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
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.