Maxims and Reflections - LightNovelsOnl.com
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282
A man may live never so retired a life but he becomes a debtor or a creditor before he is aware of it.
283
If anyone meets us who owes us a debt of grat.i.tude, it immediately crosses our mind. How often can we meet some one to whom we owe grat.i.tude, without thinking of it!
284
To communicate oneself is Nature; to receive a communication as it is given is Culture.
285
No one would speak much in society if he were aware how often we misunderstand others.
286
It is only because we have not understood a thing that we cannot repeat it without alteration.
287
To make a long speech in the presence of others without flattering your audience, is to rouse dislike.
288
Every word that we utter rouses its contrary.
289
Contradiction and flattery make, both of them, bad conversation.
290
The pleasantest society is that in which there exists a genial deference amongst the members one towards another.
291
By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.
292
The ridiculous springs from a moral contrast innocently presented to the senses.
293
The sensual man often laughs when there is nothing to laugh at. Whatever it is that moves him, he shows that he is pleased with himself.
294
An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly anything.
295
A man well on in years was reproved for still troubling himself about young women. 'It is the only means,' he replied, 'of regaining one's youth; and that is something every one wishes to do.'
296
A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.
297
Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist. We should not like old friends to give up certain peculiarities.
298
It is said of a man that he will soon die, when he acts in any way unlike himself.
299
What kind of faults in ourselves should we retain, nay, even cultivate?
Those which rather flatter other people than offend them.
300
The pa.s.sions are good or bad qualities, only intensified.
301
Our pa.s.sions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once.
302
Great pa.s.sions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous.
303
Pa.s.sion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence towards those we love.
304
To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who except G.o.d can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors.
305
It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong to each one separately.
