When great men allow themselves to be cast down by continued misfortunes, they show that they bore them only through the strength of their ambition, and not through that of their soul; and that, great vanity apart, heroes are made like other men. It requires greater virtue to bear good fortune than bad. We often make a parade of passions, even of the most criminal; but envy is a timid and shameful passion which we never dare to acknowledge. Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it tends only to retain a good which belongs to us, or which we think belongs to us; whereas envy is a fury which cannot endure the good of others. We have more strength than will; and it is often to excuse ourselves to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible. Pride has a greater share than goodness in our remonstrances with those who commit faults; and we reprove not so much to correct, as to persuade them that we ourselves are free from them. We promise according to our hopes, and we perform according to our fears. Interest speaks all sorts of languages, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness. Those who occupy themselves too much with small things usually become incapable of great. Strength and weakness of mind are misnamed: they are in fact only the good or bad arrangement of the bodily organs. The love or the indifference which the philosophers had for life was only a taste of their self-love; which we should no more argue about than about the taste of the tongue or the choice of colors. Happiness is in relish, and not in things: it is by having what we like that we are happy, and not in having what others find likable. We are never so happy or so unhappy as we imagine. Nothing ought to lessen the satisfaction we have in ourselves. so much as seeing that we disapprove at one time what we approved at another. Contempt for riches was with the philosophers a hidden desire to avenge their worth for the injustice of fortune, by con tempt for the good things of which she deprived them: it was a secret to secure themselves from the degradation of poverty; it was a byway to gain that consolation which they could not have from wealth. Sincerity is a frankness of heart. We find it in very few people, and what we usually see is only a delicate dissimulation to gain the confidence of others. Grace is to the body what good sense is to the mind. It is difficult to define love. What we may say of it is, that in the soul it is a ruling passion; in the mind it is a sympathy; and in the body it is a hidden and delicate desire to possess what we love, after much mystery. There is no disguise which can hide love long where it is, or feign it where it is not. There are few people who are not ashamed of having loved each other when they no longer love each other. We may find women who have never had a gallantry, but it is rare to find any who have only had one. Love, as well as fire, cannot exist without constant motion; and it ceases to live as soon as it ceases to hope or to fear. It is of true love as of the apparition of spirits: all the world talks of it, but few people have seen it. The love of justice is in most men only the fear of suffering injustice. What makes us so fickle in our friendships is, that it is diffi cult to know the qualities of the soul and easy to know those of the mind. We can love nothing but by its relation to ourselves; and we only follow our taste and our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves. Nevertheless it is by this preference alone that friendship can be true and perfect. Every one complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment. To undeceive a man absorbed in his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as was done to that mad Athenian who believed that all the ships which entered the harbor belonged to himself. Old men like to give good advice, to console themselves for being no longer able to give bad examples. The sign of extraordinary merit is to see that those who envy it most are constrained to praise it. We are mistaken when we think that the mind and the judg ment are two different things. The judgment is only the great ness of the light of the mind: this light penetrates the depths of things; it notes there all that should be noted, and perceives those things which seem imperceptible. Thus we must admit that it is the extent of the light of the mind which causes all the effects which we attribute to judgment. Refinement of mind consists in thinking on proper and delicate things. The mind is ever the dupe of the heart. All who know their mind do not know their heart. The mind could not long play the part of the heart. Youth changes its tastes from heat of blood, and age preserves its own from habit. We give nothing so liberally as advice. The more we love a lady-love, the nearer we are to hating her. There are some good marriages, but no delightful ones. We often do good to be able to do harm with impunity. If we resist our passions, it is more from their weakness than from our strength. The true way to be deceived is to think oneself sharper than others. The least fault of women who give themselves up to lovemaking is making love. One of the causes why we find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he wishes to say than of replying exactly to what is said to him. The cleverest and the most compliant think it enough to show an attentive air, while we see in their eyes and in their mind a wandering from what is said to them, and a hurry to return to what they wish to say; instead of considering that it is a bad way to please or to persuade others, to try so hard to please oneself, and that to listen well and answer well is one of the greatest accomplishments we can have in conversation. We generally praise only to be praised. Nature creates merit, and fortune sets it to work. It is more easy to appear worthy of a calling not our own than of the one we follow. There are two kinds of constancy in love: the one comes from constantly finding new things to love in the person we love, and the other comes from our making it a point of honor to be constant. |