Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims Part 20

XXV.--Sobriety is the love of health, or an incapacity to eat much.

(1665, No. 135.)

XXVI.--We never forget things so well as when we are tired of talking of them. (1665, No. 144.)

XXVII.--The praise bestowed upon us is at least useful in rooting us in the practice of virtue. (1665, No. 155.)

XXVIII.--Self-love takes care to prevent him whom we flatter from being him who most flatters us. (1665, No. 157.)

XXIX.--Men only blame vice and praise virtue from interest. (1665, No.

151.)

x.x.x.--We make no difference in the kinds of anger, although there is that which is light and almost innocent, which arises from warmth of complexion, temperament, and another very criminal, which is, to speak properly, the fury of pride. (1665, No. 159.)

x.x.xI.--Great souls are not those who have fewer pa.s.sions and more virtues than the common, but those only who have greater designs. (1665, No. 161.)

x.x.xII.--Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they make them bear what value they will, and one is forced to receive them according to their currency value, and not at their true worth. (1665, No. 165.)

[See Burns{, For A' That An A' That}-- "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, {The} man's {the gowd} for a' that." Also Farquhar and other parallel pa.s.sages pointed out in Familiar Words.]

x.x.xIII.--Natural ferocity makes fewer people cruel than self-love.

(1665, No. 174.)

x.x.xIV.--One may say of all our virtues as an Italian poet says of the propriety of women, that it is often merely the art of appearing chaste.

(1665, No. 176.)

x.x.xV.--There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious by their brilliancy,* their number, or their excess; thus it happens that public robbery is called financial skill, and the unjust capture of provinces is called a conquest. (1665, No. 192.)

*Some crimes may be excused by their brilliancy, such as those of Jael, of Deborah, of Brutus, and of Charlotte Corday--further than this the maxim is satire.

x.x.xVI.--One never finds in man good or evil in excess. (1665, No. 201.)

x.x.xVII.--Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not easily suspect others. (1665, No. {2}08.)

{The text incorrectly numbers this maxim as 508. It is 208.}

x.x.xVIII.--The pomp of funerals concerns rather the vanity of the living, than the honour of the dead. (1665, No. 213.)

x.x.xIX.--Whatever variety and change appears in the world, we may remark a secret chain, and a regulated order of all time by Providence, which makes everything follow in due rank and fall into its destined course.

(1665, No. 225.)

XL.--Intrepidity should sustain the heart in conspiracies in place of valour which alone furnishes all the firmness which is necessary for the perils of war. (1665, No. 231.)

XLI.--Those who wish to define victory by her birth will be tempted to imitate the poets, and to call her the Daughter of Heaven, since they cannot find her origin on earth. Truly she is produced from an infinity of actions, which instead of wis.h.i.+ng to beget her, only look to the particular interests of their masters, since all those who compose an army, in aiming at their own rise and glory, produce a good so great and general. (1665, No. 232.)

XLII.--That man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage. (1665, No. 236.)

XLIII.--We more often place bounds on our grat.i.tude than on our desires and our hopes. (1665, No. 241.)

XLIV.--Imitation is always unhappy, for all which is counterfeit displeases by the very things which charm us when they are original (Naturelles). (1665, No. 245.)

XLV.--We do not regret the loss of our friends according to their merits, but according to OUR wants, and the opinion with which we believed we had impressed them of our worth. (1665, No. 248.)

XLVI.--It is very hard to separate the general goodness spread all over the world from great cleverness. (1665, No. 252.)

XLVII.--For us to be always good, others should believe that they cannot behave wickedly to us with impunity. (1665, No. 254.)

XLVIII.--A confidence in being able to please is often an infallible means of being displeasing. (1665, No. 256.)

XLIX.--The confidence we have in ourselves arises in a great measure from that that we have in others. (1665, No. 258.)

L.--There is a general revolution which changes the tastes of the mind as well as the fortunes of the world. (1665, No. 250.)

LI.--Truth is foundation and the reason of the perfection of beauty, for of whatever stature a thing may be, it cannot be beautiful and perfect unless it be truly that she should be, and possess truly all that she should have (1665, No. 260.)

[Beauty is truth, truth beauty.{--John Keats, "Ode on a a Grecian Urn,"

(1820), Stanza 5}]

LII.--There are fine things which are more brilliant when unfinished than when finished too much. (1665, No. 262.)

LIII.--Magnanimity is a n.o.ble effort of pride which makes a man master of himself, to make him master of all things. (1665, No. 271.)

LIV.--Luxury and too refined a policy in states are a sure presage of their fall, because all parties looking after their own interest turn away from the public good. (1665, No. 282.)

LV.--Of all pa.s.sions that which is least known to us is idleness; she is the most ardent and evil of all, although her violence may be insensible, and the evils she causes concealed; if we consider her power attentively we shall find that in all encounters she makes herself mistress of our sentiments, our interests, and our pleasures; like the (fabled) Remora, she can stop the greatest vessels, she is a hidden rock, more dangerous in the most important matters than sudden squalls and the most violent tempests. The repose of idleness is a magic charm which suddenly suspends the most ardent pursuits and the most obstinate resolutions. In fact to give a true notion of this pa.s.sion we must add that idleness, like a beat.i.tude of the soul, consoles us for all losses and fills the vacancy of all our wants. (1665, No. 290.)

LVI.--We are very fond of reading others' characters, but we do not like to be read ourselves. (1665, No. 296.)

LVII.--What a tiresome malady is that which forces one to preserve your health by a severe regimen. (Ibid, No. 298.)

LVIII.--It is much easier to take love when one is free, than to get rid of it after having taken it. (1665, No. 300.)

LIX.--Women for the most part surrender themselves more from weakness than from pa.s.sion. Whence it is that bold and pus.h.i.+ng men succeed better than others, although they are not so loveable. (1665, No. 301.)

LX.--Not to love is in love, an infallible means of being beloved.

(1665, No. 302.)

LXI.--The sincerity which lovers and mistresses ask that both should know when they cease to love each other, arises much less from a wish to be warned of the cessation of love, than from a desire to be a.s.sured that they are beloved although no one denies it. (1665, No. 303.)

LXII.--The most just comparison of love is that of a fever, and we have no power over either, as to its violence or its duration. (1665, No.

305.)

LXIII.--The greatest skill of the least skilful is to know how to submit to the direction of another. (1665, No. 309.)

LXIV.--We always fear to see those whom we love when we have been flirting with others. (16{74}, No. 372.)

LXV.--We ought to console ourselves for our faults when we have strength enough to own them. (16{74}, No. 375.)

{The date of the previous two maxims is incorrectly cited as 1665 in the text. I found this date immediately suspect because the translators'