Baltasar Gracián, François de La Rochefoucauld, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Collected Wisdom, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Reflections Sentences and Moral Maxims and Maxims and Reflections.pdf 9781504044516

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Collected Wisdom The Art of Worldly Wisdom; Reflections Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims; Maxims and Reflections

Baltasar Gracián, François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Art of Worldly Wisdom Balthasar Gracián

Translated from the Spanish by Joesph Jacobs Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of History, Madrid

Auf des Glückes großer Waage Steht die Zunge selten ein; Du mußt steigen oder sinken, Du mußt herrschen und gewinnen, Oder dienen und verlieren, Leiden oder triumphieren, Amboß oder Hammer sein. —Goethe, Ein Kophtisches Lied. (On the great scales of fortune, The balance rarely keeps still; You must rise or sink, You must rule and win Or serve and lose, Suffer or triumph, Be the anvil or the hammer.) Translation of Goethe by John Bruno Hare When you are an anvil, hold you still, When you are a hammer, strike your fill. —G. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum To Mrs. G. H. Lewis Dear Mrs. Lewis, This little book were not worthy of being associated with your name, did it not offer an ideal of life at once refined and practical, cultured yet wisely energetic. Gracián points to noble aims, and proposes, on the whole, no ignoble means of attaining to them. The Spanish Jesuit sees clear, but he looks upward. There is, however, one side of life to which he is entirely blind, as was perhaps natural in an ecclesiastic writing before the Age of Salons. He nowhere makes mention in his pages of the gracious influence of Woman as Inspirer and Consoler in the Battle of Life. Permit me to repair this omission by placing your name in the forefront of this English version of

his maxims. To those honoured with your friendship this will by itself suffice to recall all the ennobling associations connected with your sex. Believe me, dear Mrs. Lewis, Yours most sincerely, Joseph Jacobs Kilburn, 26th October 1892.

PREFACE first drawn to the Oráculo Manual by Mr. (now Sir Mountstuart) Grant Duff’s admirable article on Balthasar Gracián in the Fortnightly Review of March 1877. I soon after obtained a copy of Schopenhauer’s excellent version, and during a journey in Spain I procured with some difficulty a villainously printed edition of Gracián’s works (Barcelona, 1734, “Por Joseph Giralt”), which contains the Oráculo Manual towards the end of the first volume (pp. 431-494). I have translated from this last, referring in the many doubtful places of its text to the first Madrid edition of 1653, the earliest in the British Museum. I have throughout had Schopenhauer’s version by my side, and have found it, as Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff says, “a most finished piece of work,” though I have pointed out in the Notes a few cases where he has failed, in my opinion, to give Gracián’s meaning completely or correctly. I have little doubt that I am a fellow-sinner in this regard: I know no prose style that offers such difficulty to a translator as Gracián’s laconic and artificial epigrams. It is not without reason that he has been called the Intraducible. The two earlier English versions miss his points time after time, and I found it useless to refer to them. On the other hand, I have ventured to adopt some of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s often very happy renderings in the extracts contained in his Fortnightly article. I have endeavoured to reproduce Gracián’s Laconism and Cultismo in my version, and have even tried to retain his many paronomasias and jingles of similar sound. I may have here and there introduced others of my own to redress the balance for cases where I found it impossible to produce the same effect in English. In such cases I generally give the original in the Notes. Wherever possible I have replaced Spanish proverbs and proverbial phrases by English ones, and have throughout tried to preserve the characteristic rhythm and brevity of the Proverb. In short, if I may venture to say so, I have approached my task rather in the spirit of Fitzgerald than of Bohn. The gem on the title, representing a votive offering to Hermes, the god of MY ATTENTION WAS

Worldly Wisdom, is from a fine paste in the British Museum of the best period of Greek glyptic art. I have to thank Mr. Cecil Smith of that Institution for kind advice in the selection. Let me conclude these prefatory words with a piece of advice as oracular as my original: When reading this little book for the first time, read only fifty maxims and then stop for the day. Joseph Jacobs

TESTIMONIA Il est si concis si rompu et si estrangement coupé qu’il semble qu’il ait pris l’obscurité à tasche: aussi le Lecteur a besoin d’en deuiner le sens & souvent quand il l’a compris il trouve qu’il s’est estudié à faire une énigme d’une chose fort commune. F. Van Aerssens, Voyage d’Espagne, 1667, p. 294. Il a beaucoup d’élévation, de subtilité, de force et même de bon sens: mais on ne sait le plus souvent ce qu’il veut dire, et il ne le sait pas peut-être luimême. Quelques-uns de ses Ouvrages ne semblent être fait, que pour n’être point entendus. Bouhour’s Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène, 1671, p. 203. Luisa de Padilla, a Lady of great Learning, and Countess of Aranda, was in like manner angry with the famous Gratian upon his publishing his Treatise of the Discreto, wherein she fancied that he had laid open those Maxims to common Readers, which ought only to be reserved for the knowledge of the Great. These Objections are thought by many of so much weight that they often defend the above-mention’d Authors by affirming they have affected such an Obscurity in their Style and Manner of Writing, that tho’ every one may read their Works there will be but very few who can comprehend their Meaning. The Spectator, No. 379 (1712). En cherchant toujours l’énergie et le sublime il devient outré et se perd dans les mots. Gracián est aux bons moralistes ce que Don Quichotte est aux vrais héros. Its ont l’un et l’autre un faux air de grandeur qui en impose aux sots et qui fait rire les sages. Abbé Desfontaines,1745. Qué de elogios no se deben al autor del Criticon! En medio de las antitesis, paronomasias y toda la metralla culta es una de las obras más recomendables de nuestra literatura por la felicidad de la invention, la

inagotable riqueza de imagination y de sales, por la viveza de sus pinturas y por la gracia, soltura y naturalidad del estilo. Don Manuel Sievela, Biblioteca selecta de literatura española (1819). Si hubiese Gracián procedido con más sobriedad en el uso de estos juegos y conceptos ¿qual es el escritor de su tiempo de tantos dotes y caudal nativo para ser el más fecondo y elegante, sabiendo, como lo manifesto, en dónde estaban las delicadezas y los donaires, esto es, lo amargo, lo dulce, lo picante, lo salado de la lengua castellana? Don Antonio Capmany, Teatro de la elocuencia española, tomo v. The Oráculo Manual has been more used than any other of the author’s works. It is intended to be a collection of maxims of general utility, but it exhibits good and bad precepts, sound judgments, and refined sophisms, all confounded together. In this work Gracián has not forgotten to inculcate his practical principles of Jesuitism to be all things to all men (“hacerse a todos”), nor to recommend his favourite maxim, “to be common in nothing” (“en nada vulgar”), which, in order to be valid, would require a totally different interpretation from that which he has given it. Bouterwek. The person, however, who settled the character of cultismo and in some respects gave it an air of philosophical pretension, was Baltazar Gracián, a Jesuit of Aragon, who lived between 1601 and 1658, exactly the period when the cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose and rose to its greatest consideration. G. Ticknor, History of Span. Lit. iii. 222. Dabei ist es das Einzigeseiner Art und nie ein anderes über denselben Gegenstand geschrieben worden; denn nur ein Individuum aus der feinsten aller Nationen, der spanischen, konnte es versuchen. … Dasselbe lehrt die Kunst derer Allesich befliessigen und ist daher für Jedermann. Besonders aber ist es geeignet das Handbuch aller derer zu werden, die in der grossen Welt leben, ganz vorzüglich aber junger Leute, die ihr Glück darin zu machen bemüht sind und denen es mit Einem Mal und zum Voraus die Belehrung giebt die sie sonst erst durch lange Erfahrung erhalten.

A. Schopenhauer, Litterarische Notiz we seiner Uebersetzung (1831, published 1861). Avec beaucoup d’esprit, d’instruction & de facilité il n’a rien produit qui puisse aujourd’hui soutenir l’examen de la critique la plus impartiale. Puibusque, Histoire comparée des littératures espagnole et française, 1843, i. p. 559. Gracián aurait pu être un excellent écrivain s’il n’avait pas voulu devenir un écrivain extraordinaire. Doué d’une vaste érudition, d’un esprit fin, d’un talent profond d’observation, il était né pour éclairer son siècle; mais la vanité de devenir novateur corrompit son goût, en le portant à introduire dans la prose ce langage précieux, ces expressions alambiquées que Gongora avait introduit dans les vers. A. de Backer, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1869, s.v. Gracián. Asi como las máximas de Antonio Perez fueron muy populares entre cortesanos ó doctos ó ilustrados, así españoles como extranjeros, por aquella delicadeza especial de estilo, las del Padre Baltasar Gracián alcanzaron la misma estima por ese atildamiento en el decir: atildamiento que tenia en si un inexplicable atractivo, y que aunque algo participaba del general culteranismo de la literatura española en aquel siglo, encerraba cierto buen gusto deslumbrador y lisonjero para el lector que on profundisimos conceptos preciaba con la fuerza de su ingenio aquellos. Don Adolfo de Castro, Obras escogidas de Filósofia, 1873, p. cviii. Taking the book as a guide, especially for those who intend to enter public life, I have never chanced to meet with anything which seemed to me even distantly to approach it … It would possibly be rather difficult to disprove the thesis that the Spanish nation has produced the best maxims of practical wisdom, the best proverb, the best epitaph, and the best motto in the world, If I had to sustain it, I would point with reference to the first head to the Oráculo Manual. Sir M. E. Grant Duff on “Balthasar Gracián” in Fortnightly Review, March 1877.

Some have found light in the sayings of Balthasar Gracián, a Spaniard who flourished at the end of the seventeenth century. … I do not myself find Gracián much of a companion, though some of his aphorisms give a neat turn to a commonplace. J. Morley on “Aphorisms,” Studies, 1891, p. 86.

INTRODUCTION

I. Of Balthasar Gracián and his Works say of Gracián what Heine by an amiable fiction said of himself: he was one of the first men of his century. For he was born 8th January 1601 N.S.1 at Belmonte, a suburb of Calatayud, in the kingdom of Aragon. Calatayud, properly Kalat Ayoub, “Job’s Town,” is nearly on the site of the ancient Bilbilis, Martial’s birthplace. As its name indicates, it was one of the Moorish settlements, and nearly one of the most northern. By Gracián’s time it had again been Christian and Spanish for many generations, and Gracián himself was of noble birth. For a Spaniard of noble birth only two careers were open, arms and the Church. In the seventeenth century arms had yielded to the cassock, and Balthasar and his three brothers all took orders. Felipe, his eldest, joined the order of St. Francis; the next brother, Pedro, became a Trinitarian during his short life; and the third, Raymundo, became a Carmelite.2 Balthasar himself tells us (Agudeza, c. xxv.) that he was brought up in the house of his uncle, the licentiate Antonio Gracián, at Toledo, from which we may gather that both his father and his mother, a Morales, died in his early youth. He joined the Company of Jesus in 1619, when in its most flourishing state, after the organising genius of Acquaviva had given solid form to the bold counterstroke of Loyola to the Protestant Revolution. The Ratio Studiorum was just coming into full force, and Gracián was one of the earliest men in Europe to be educated on the system which has dominated the secondary education of Europe almost down to our own days. This point is of some importance, we shall see, in considering Gracián’s chief work. Once enrolled among the ranks of the Jesuits, the individual disappears, the Jesuit alone remains. There is scarcely anything to record of Gracián’s life except that he was a Jesuit, and engaged in teaching what passes with the Order for philosophy and sacred literature, and became ultimately Rector of the Jesuit College at Tarragona. His great friend was Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, a dilettante of the period, who lived at Huesca, and collected coins, medals, and other archæological bric-a-brac. Gracián appears to have shared his tastes, for Lastanosa mentions him in his description, of his own cabinet. A long correspondence with him was once WE MAY CERTAINLY

extant and seen by Latassa, who gives the dates and places where the letters were written. From these it would seem that Gracián moved about considerably from Madrid to Zarogoza, and thence to Tarragona. From another source we learn that Philip III. often had him to dinner to provide Attic salt to the royal table. He preached, and his sermons were popular. In short, a life of prudent prosperity came to an end when Balthasar Gracián, Rector of the Jesuit College at Tarragona, died there 6th December 1658, at the age of nearly fifty-eight years. Of Gracián’s works there is perhaps more to say even while leaving for separate consideration that one which is here presented to the English reader and forms his chief claim to attention. Spanish literature was passing into its period of swagger, a period that came to all literatures of modern Europe after the training in classics had given afresh the sense of style. The characteristic of this period in a literature is suitably enough the appearance of “conceits” or elaborate and far-fetched figures of speech. The process began with Antonia Guevara, author of El Libro Aureo, from which, according to some, the English form of the disease known as Euphuism was derived. But it received a further impetus from the success of the stilo culto of Gongora in poetry.3 Gongorism drove “conceit” to its farthest point: artificiality of diction could go no farther in verse: it was only left for Gracián to apply it to prose. He did this for the first time in 1630 in his first work, El Heroe. This was published, like most of his other works, by his lifelong friend Lastanosa, and under the name of Lorenzo Gracián, a supposititious brother of Gracián’s, who, so far as can be ascertained, never existed. The whole of El Heroe exists, in shortened form, in the Oráculo Manual.4 The form, however, is so shortened that it would be difficult to recognise the original primores, as they are called, of El Heroe. Yet it is precisely in the curtness of the sentences that the peculiarity of the stilo culto consists. Generally elaborate metaphor and far-fetched allusions go with long and involved sentences of the periodic type. But with Gracián the aim is as much towards shortness as towards elaboration. The embroidery is rich but the jacket is short, as he himself might have said. As for the subject-matter, the extracts in the Oráculo will suffice to give some notion of the lofty ideal or character presented in El Heroe, the ideal indeed associated in the popular

mind with the term hidalgo.5 A later book, El Discreto, first published in 1647, gives the counterpoise to El Heroe by drawing an ideal of the prudent courtier as contrasted with the proud and spotless hidalgo. This too is fully represented in the book before us, but the curtailment is still more marked than in the case of El Heroe. There is evidence that Gracián wrote a similar pair of contrasts, termed respectively El Galante and El Varon Atento, which were not published but were incorporated in the Oráculo Manual by Lastanosa. The consequences of this utilisation of contrasts will concern us later. Reverting to Gracián’s works somewhat more in their order, his éloge of Ferdinand, the Magus of Columbus’ epoch, need not much detain us. It is stilted and conventional and does not betray much historical insight. Gracián’s Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio is of more importance and interest as the formal exposition of the critical principles of Cultismo. It is concerned more with verse than prose and represents the Poetics of Gongorism. A curious collection of flowers of rhetoric in Spanish verse could be made from it. Of still more restricted interest is the Comulgador or sacred meditations for holy communion. I do not profess to be a judge of this class of literature, if literature it can be called, but the fact that the book was deemed worthy of an English translation as lately as 1876 seems to show that it still answers the devotional needs of Catholics. It has a personal interest for Gracián, as it was the only book of his that appeared under his own name. There remains only to be considered, besides the Oráculo Manual, Gracián’s El Criticon, a work of considerable value and at least historic interest which appeared in the three parts dealing with Youth, Maturity, and Old Age respectively during the years 1650-53. This is a kind of philosophic romance or allegory depicting the education of the human soul. A Spaniard named Critilo is wrecked on St. Helena, and there finds a sort of Man Friday,6 whom he calls Andrenio. Andrenio, after learning to communicate with Critilo, gives him a highly elaborate autobiography of his soul from the age of three days or so. They then travel to Spain, where they meet Truth, Valour, Falsehood, and other allegorical females and males, who are labelled by Critilo for Andrenio’s benefit in the approved

and frigid style of the allegorical teacher. Incidentally, however, the ideals and aspirations of the Spaniard of the seventeenth century are brought out, and from this point of view the book derives the parallel with the Pilgrim’s Progress which Ticknor had made for it.7 It is certainly one of the most characteristic products of Spanish literature, both for style and subjectmatter. Nearly all these works of Gracián were translated into most of the cultured languages of Europe, English not excepted.8 Part of this ecumenical fame was doubtless due to the fact that Gracián was a Jesuit, and brethren of his Order translated the works of one of whom the Order was justly proud. But this explanation cannot altogether account for the wide spread of Gracián’s works, and there remains a deposit of genuine ability and literary skill involved in most of the works I have briefly referred to—ability and skill of an entirely obsolete kind nowadays, but holding a rank of their own in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when didacticism was all the rage. It is noteworthy that the Testimonia I have collected for the most part pass over the Oráculo, the only work at which a modern would care to cast a second glance, and go into raptures over El Criticon and its fellows, or the reverse of raptures on Gracián’s style, which after all was the most striking thing about his works. That style reaches its greatest perfection in the Oráculo Manual, to which we might at once turn but for a preliminary inquiry which it seems worth while to make. It is a book of maxims as distinguished from a book of aphorisms, and it is worth while for several reasons inquiring into maxims in general and maxim literature in particular before dealing with what is probably the most remarkable specimen of its class. Before, however, doing this we may close this section of our introductory remarks by “putting in,” as the lawyers say, the Latin inscription given by Latassa from the foot of the portrait of Gracián, which once stood in the Jesuit College at Calatayud, a portrait of which, alas! no trace can now be found. The lines sum up in sufficiently forcible Latin all that need be known of Balthasar Gracián and his works. P. BALTHASAR GRACIÀN VT IAM AB ORTV EMINERET IN BELLOMONTE NATVS EST PROPE BILBILIM CONFINIS MARTIALIS PATRIA PROXIMVS INGENIO,

VT PROFVNDERET ADHVC CHRISTIANAS ARGVTIAS BILBILIS QVÆ PŒNE EXHAVSTA VIDEBATVR IN ETHNICIS. ERGO AVGENS NATALE INGENIVM INNATO ACVMINE SCRIPSIT ARTEM INGENII ET ARTE FACIT SCIBILE QVOD SCIBILES FACIT ARTES. SCRIPSIT ITEM ARTEM PRVDENTIAE ET A SE IPSO ARTEM DIDICIT. SCRIPSIT ORACVLVM ET VOCES SVAS PROTVLIT. SCRIPSIT DISERTVM VT SE IPSVM DESCRIBERET ET VT SCRIBERET HEROEM HEROICA PATRAVIT. HÆC ET ALIA EIVS SCRIPTA MOECENATES REGES HABVERVNT IVDICES ADMIRATIONEM LECTOREM MVNDVM TYPOGRAPHVM ÆTERNITATEM. PHILIPPVS III. SÆPE ILLIVS ARGVTIAS INTER PRANDIVM VERSABAT NE DEFICERENT SALES REGIIS DAPIBVS. SED QVI PLAVSVS EXCITAVERAT CALAMO DEDITVS MISSIONIBVS EXCITAVIT PLANCTVS VERBO EXCITATVRVS DESIDERIVM IN MORTE QVA RAPTVS FVIT VI. DECEMBRIS AN. MDCLVIII SED ALIQVANDO EXTINCTVS ÆTERNVM LVCEBIT.

II. Of Maxims Many men have sought to give their views about man and about life in a pithy way; a few have tried to advise men in short sentences what to do in the various emergencies of life. The former have written aphorisms, the latter maxims. Where the aphorism states a fact of human nature, a maxim advises a certain course of action. The aphorism is written in the indicative, the maxim in an imperative mood.9 “Life is interesting if not happy,” is an aphorism, of Professor Seely’s, I believe. “Ascend a step to choose a friend, descend a step to choose a wife,” is a maxim of Rabbi Meir, one of the Doctors of the Talmud. Now it is indeed curious how few maxims have ever been written. Wisdom has been extolled on the house-tops, but her practical advice seems to have been kept secret. Taking our own literature, there are extremely few books of practical maxims, and not a single one of any great merit. Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cabinet Council, Penn’s Maxims, and Chesterfield’s Letters almost exhaust the list, and the last generally contains much more than mere maxims. Nor are they scattered with any profusion through books teeming with knowledge of life, the galaxy of English novels. During recent years extracts of their “beauties” have been published in some profusion— Wit and Wisdom of Beaconsfield; Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings of George Eliot; Extracts from Thackeray, and the rest—but the crop of practical maxims to be found among them is extremely scanty. Aphorisms there are in plenty, especially in George Eliot, but he that is doubtful what course to pursue in any weighty crisis would wofully waste his time if he sought for advice from the novelists. Nor are the moralists more instructive in this regard. Bacon’s Essays leave with one the impression of fulness of practical wisdom. Yet, closely examined, there is very little residue of practical advice left in his pregnant sayings. Even the source of most of this kind of writing, the Biblical book of Proverbs, fails to answer the particular kind of test I am at present applying. However shrewd some of them are, startling us with the consciousness how little human nature has changed, it is knowledge of human nature that they mainly supply. When we ask for instruction how to apply that knowledge we only get variations of the theme “Fear the Lord.”

Two thousand years of experience have indeed shown that the Fear or Love of the Lord forms a very good foundation for practical wisdom. But it has to be supplemented by some such corollary as “Keep your powder dry” before it becomes of direct service in the conduct of life. It is indeed because of the unpractical nature of practical maxims that they have been so much neglected. You must act in the concrete, you can only maximise in general terms. Then, again, maxims can only appeal to the mind, to the intellect: the motive force of action is the will, the temperament. As Disraeli put it: “The conduct of men depends on the temperament, not upon a bunch of musty maxims” (Henrietta Temple). It is only very distantly that a maxim can stir the vague desire that spurs an imitative will. True, at times we read of men whose whole life has been coloured by a single saying. But these have generally been more appeals to the imagination, like Newman’s “Securus judicat orbis terrarum,” or the “Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge litus avarum,” which had so decisive an effort on Savonarola’s life. It is rare indeed that a man’s whole life is tinged by a single practical maxim like Sir Daniel Gooch, who was influenced by his father’s advice, “Stick to one thing.” Perhaps one of the reasons that have led literary persons to neglect the Maxim as a literary form has been their own ignorance of Action and, still more, their exaggerated notions of its difficulties and complexities. Affairs are not conducted by aphorisms: war is waged by a different kind of Maxims from those we are considering. Yet after all there must be some general principles on which actions should be conducted, and one would think they could be determined. Probably the successful men of action are not sufficiently self-observant to know exactly on what their success depends, and, if they did, they would in most cases try to “keep it in the family,” like their wealth or their trade secrets. And perhaps after all they are right who declare that action has little to do with intellect, and much with character. To say the truth, one is not impressed with the intellectual powers of the millionaires one meets. The shadiest of journalists could often explain their own doings with more point than they. Yet there are surely intellectual qualifications required for affairs: the Suez Canal must have required as great an amount of research, emendation, sense of order, and organisation as, say, the Corpus

Inscriptionum Latinarum. But there is no such punishment for slovenly scholarship in action as there is in letters. The Suez Canal can be dug only once: Lucretius or Latin inscriptions can be edited over and over again. Altogether we need not be surprised if the men of action cannot put the principles of action into pointed sentences or maxims. And if men of action cannot, it is not surprising that men of letters do not. For they cannot have the interest in action and its rewards which is required for worldly success, or else they would not be able to concentrate their thoughts on things which they consider of higher import. To a man of letters the world is the devil, or ought to be if he is to have the touch of idealism which gives colour and weight to his words. How then is he to devote his attention to worldly wisdom and the maxims that are to teach it? It is characteristic in this connection that the weightiest writer of maxims in our language is Bacon, who attempted to combine a career of affairs and of thought, and spoilt both by so doing. It is perhaps due to the subtle and all-embracing influence of Christianity on modern civilisation that this divorce between idealism and the world has come about. The strenuous opposition to the world among earnest Christians has led to their practical withdrawal from it. Just as the celibacy of the clergy meant that the next generation was to be deprived of the hereditary influence of some of the purest spirits of the time, so the opposition of Christianity to the world has brought it about that the world has been un-Christian. Only one serious attempt has been made to bridge the chasm. The idée mère of Jesuitism was to make the world Christian by Christians becoming worldly. It was doubtless due to the reaction against the over-spiritualisation of Christianity pressed by the Protestant Reformation, but its practical result has been to make the Jesuit a worldly Christian. The control of the higher education of Europe by the Jesuits has tended, on the other hand, to make society more Christian. If then we were to look for an adequate presentation of worldly wisdom touched with sufficient idealism to make it worthy of a man of letters, we should look for it from a Jesuit, or from one trained among the Jesuits. After all this elaborate explanation why so few maxims have been composed it may seem contradictory to give as a further and final reason because so many exist—under another form. For what are the majority of

proverbs but maxims under another name, or rather maxims without the name of their author? We say of proverbs, indeed, that they arise among the people, but it is one definite individual among the people that gives them the piquant form that makes them proverbial. It was, we may be sure, a definite English gaffer who first said, “Penny wise, pound foolish.” If we knew his name, we should call it maxim; as his name is unknown it ranks as a proverb. In this connection the Talmudic proverbs and maxims are of great interest. Owing to the worthy Rabbinic principle, “Say a thing in the name of the man who said it,” we can in almost all cases trace Talmudic proverbs to their authors; or, in other words, Talmudic proverbs remain maxims. There is only one analogous case in English; a few of Benjamin Franklin’s maxims, e.g. “Three removes are as good as a fire,”10 have become proverbs. The abundance of proverbs is extraordinary. There is a whole bibliography devoted to the literature of proverbs (Duplessis, Bibliographie Parémiologique, Paris, 1847), and this needs nowadays a supplement as large again as the original (partly supplied by the bibliographical Appendix of Haller, Altspanische Sprichwörter, 1883). Indeed in the multitude of proverbs consists the greatest proof of their uselessness as guides to action, for by this means we get proverbs at cross purposes. Thus take the one I have just referred to, “Penny wise, pound foolish,” which has a variant in the proverb, “Do not spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar.” A man who was hesitating as to the amount or expense he would incur in any undertaking would be prompted by these sayings to be lavish. But then how about the proverb, “Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves”? Between the two proverbs he would come to the ground, and if he has the νους to decide between them, he does not need the proverbs at all. Hence it is perhaps that the nation that is richest in proverbs is the one that has proved itself among European peoples the least wise in action. To the Spaniards has been well applied the witticism about Charles II.: “They never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one.” Certainly if proverbs be a proof of wisdom the Spaniards have given proofs in abundance. Don Quixote is full of them and the Spanish collections are extraordinarily rich. Now the nation that can produce good proverbs should be able to produce

good maxims; hence we should expect the best book of maxims to emanate from a Spaniard. One characteristic of both these forms of practical wisdom is their artificiality. One has to think twice before the point of a proverb or a maxim is perfectly clear. “The early bird catches the worm” seems at first sight as meaningless a proposition as “There are milestones on the Dover Road.” Hence it is when a literature is passing through its artificial stage that maxims would naturally appear. So that it was clearly preordained that when the book of maxims should appear it would be by a Jesuit, so as to be worldly yet not too worldly; by a Spaniard, so that it should have the proverbial ring; and during the prevalence of cultismo, so that it should have the quaintness to attract attention.

III Of the “Oráculo Manual” Having thus proved à priori that the ideal book of maxims was destined to be the Oráculo Manual of Balthasar Gracián, let us proceed to prove our proof, as schoolboys do with their sums. That it is the best book of maxims is a foregone conclusion, because there is none other. Schopenhauer, who translated the book, observes that there is nothing like it in German, and there is certainly none approaching it in English, and if France or Italy can produce its superior, it is strange that its fame has remained so confined to its native country. Not that there are not books teaching the art of self-advancement in almost all languages. The success of Dr. Smiles’s volume on Self-Help is a sufficient instance of this.11 Curiously enough, Dr. Smiles’s book has had its greatest success in Italy, where it has given rise to quite a letteratura selfelpista, as the Italians themselves call it. Or rather not curiously, for if you wish to find the most unromantic set of ideals nowadays you must go search among the Romance nations. Gracián does not, however, compete with Dr. Smiles. He does not deal with Brodweisheit; he assumes that the vulgar question of bread and butter has been settled in favour of his reader. He may be worldly, but he is thinking of the great world. He writes for men with a position and how to make the most of it. Nor is the aim he puts before such persons an entirely selfish one. “The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good” is the only rational defence of ambition, and Gracián employs it (Max. cclxxxvi). Indeed the tone of the book is exceptionally high. It is impossible to accuse a man of any meanness who is the author of such maxims as— “One cannot praise a man too much who speaks well of them who speak ill of him” (clxii). “Friends are a second existence” (cxi). “When to change the conversation? When they talk scandal” (ccl). “In great crises there is no better companion than a bold heart” (clxvii).

“The secret of long life: lead a good life” (xc). “Be able to boast that if gallantry, generosity, and fidelity were lost in the world men would be able to find them again in your own breast” (clxv). “A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are” (cclxxx). And there are whole sections dealing with such topics as Rectitude (xxix), Sympathy with great Minds (xliv), a genial Disposition (lxxix), and the like. Not that he is without the more subtle devices of the worldly wise. One could not wish to have anything more cynical or stinging than the following:— “Find out each man’s thumbscrew” (xxvi). “A shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek him, but their advantage in him and by him” (cclii). “The truth, but not the whole truth” (clxxxi). “Keep to yourself the final touches of your art” (ccxii). “Do not take payment in politeness” (cxci). “Have a touch of the trader” (ccxxxii). “Think with the few and speak with the many” (xliii). “Never have a companion who casts you in the shade” (clii). “Never become paradoxical in order to avoid the trite” (cxliii).12 “Do not show your wounded finger” (cxlv). The characteristic of the book is this combination or rather contrast of high tone and shrewdness. Gracián is both wisely worldly and worldly wise. After all, there does not seem to be any inherent impossibility in the combination. There does not seem any radical necessity why a good man should be a fool. One always has a certain grudge against Thackeray for making his Colonel Newcome so silly at times, though perhaps the irony,

the pathos, the tragedy of the book required it. As a matter of fact the holiest of men have been some of the shrewdest, for their friends at least, if not for themselves. The explanation of the combination in Gracián is simple enough. He was a Jesuit, and the Jesuits have just that combination of high tone and worldly wisdom as their raison d’être. And in the case of the Oráculo the mixture was easily effected by Gracián or his friend Lastanosa. For Gracián had written at least two series of works in which this contrast was represented by separate books. Two of these describing the qualities of the Hero and the Prudent Man (El Heroe and El Discreto) were published and are represented in the Oráculo.13 Two others dealing with the Gallant and the Cautious Man (El Galante and El Varon Atento) are referred to by Lastanosa in the preface to El Discreto, and are also doubtless represented in the book before us. One may guess that the section on Highmindedness (cxxviii) or on Nobility of Feeling (cxxxi) comes from El Galante, while “Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone” (cxxxiii) smacks of El Varon Atento. At times we get the two tones curiously intermingled: “Choose an heroic ideal” (lxxv) seems at first sight a noble sentiment, but Gracián goes on to qualify it by adding, “but rather to emulate than to imitate.” The modernness of the tone is the thing that will strike most readers apart from these contrasts. Here and there one may be struck by an archaic note. “Never compete” would scarcely be the advice of a worldly teacher nowadays. But on the whole there is a tone of modern good society about the maxims which one would scarcely find in contemporary English works like Peacham’s, or even in contemporary French authors like Charron. The reason is that modern society is permeated by influences which Gracián himself represented. The higher education of Europe for the last two and a half centuries has been in the hands of Jesuits or in schools formed on the Ratio Studiorum. And Society in the stricter sense traces from the Hôtel Rambouillet, where one-half the influence was Spanish. Gracián thus directly represents the tone of the two Societies which have set the tone of our society of to-day, and it is no wonder therefore if he is modern. Even in his style there is something of a modern epigrammatic ring. At times there is the euphuistic quaintness, e.g. ”One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the centre of opportunity.” But as a

rule the terseness and point of the maxim approximate to the modern epigram. “El escusarse antes de ocasion es culparse” might be both the source and the model of Qui s’excuse s’accuse. The terseness is indeed excessive and carried to Tacitean extremes. “A poco saber camino real,” “Ultima felicidad el filosofar,” “Harto presto, si bien.” Gracián jerks out four or five words where a popular preacher would preach a sermon. Yet I cannot agree with the writers who call him obscure. He is one of the writers that make you think before you grasp his meaning, but the meaning is there, and put plainly enough, only tersely and very often indirectly, after the manner of proverbs. There is indeed no doubt that he and his predecessors were influenced by the form of the Spanish proverb in drawing up aphorisms and maxims. I say predecessors, for aphorismic literature at any rate was no novelty in Spain. Among the long list of books on aphorisms possessed by the late Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, and still at Keir, there are fully a dozen Spanish ones who precede Gracián (Hernando Diaz, Lopez de Corelas, and Melchior de Santa Cruz are the most important, though the latter is more full of anecdotage). Among them is a book of Aforismos by Antonio Perez, whose Relaciones has been the chief means of blackening Philip II.’s character.14 The former are undoubtedly of the same style as Gracián, and probably influenced him, though, as they are aphorisms and not maxims, I have not been able to quote parallels in the Notes. Thus “Una obra vale millares de graçias” (Perez, Afor. i. 198) has the same proverbial ring. It is curious to see Lytton’s “The pen is mightier than the sword” anticipated by Perez’ “La pluma corta mas que espadas afiladas” (ibid. 199), or Voltaire’s “Speech was given us to conceal our thoughts” in Perez’ “Las palabras, vestido de los conçeptos” (ii. 130). This last example has all Gracián’s terseness, while Perez’ “Amigos deste Siglo, rostros humanos, coraçones de fieras”15 (ii. 71) has both terseness and cynicism. Certainly the only other work in Spanish or any other literature preceding Gracián on anything like the same lines is this book of Aforismos by Antonio Perez. It is somewhat of a question, to my mind, how far Gracián was the author of the final form of the maxims as we have them in the Oráculo. Those taken from El Heroe and El Discreto differ from their originals with great advantage. They are terser, more to the point and less euphuistic. Now the Address to the Reader has all these qualities, and we may assume was

written by its signatory, Don Vincencio de Lastanosa. It is just possible that we owe to him the extreme terseness and point of the majority of the maxims of the Oráculo Manual. It must not, however, be assumed that they are all as pointed and epigrammatic as those I have quoted. Gracián seems advisedly to have imbedded his jewels in a duller setting. At times he vies with the leaders of the great sect of the Platitudinarians, and he can be as banal as he is brilliant. Even as it is, his very brilliancy wearies, and after fifty maxims or so one longs for a more fruity wisdom, a more digressive discussion of life like those learned, wise, and witty essays of Mr. Stevenson, which may some day take higher rank as literature than even his novels. Perhaps, after all, the weariness to which I refer may be due to the cautious tone of the book. To succeed one must be prudent;16 that is the great moral of the book, and if so, does it seem worth while to succeed? If life is to be denuded of the aleatory element, is it worth living? Well, Gracián meets you when in that temper too. It is indeed remarkable how frequently he refers to luck; how you are to trust your luck, weigh your luck, follow your luck, know your unlucky days, and so forth. Is all this a confession that after all life is too complex a game for any rules to be of much use? Granted, but there is one thing certain about life, and that is put by Goethe in the lines which I, following Schopenhauer,17 have placed at the head of my translation. One must be either hammer or anvil in this world, and too great an excess of idealism only means that the unideal people shall rule the world. To guard against both extremes we have the paradoxical advice I have heard attributed to Mr. Ruskin, “Fit yourself for the best society, and then—never enter it.” Whether any ideal person will learn to rule the world by studying Gracián’s or any one else’s maxims is somewhat more doubtful, for reasons I have given above in discussing proverbs. The man who can act on maxims can act without them, and so does not need them. And there is the same amount of contradiction in maxims as in proverbs. Thus, to quote an example from the book before us, from Max. cxxxii it would seem best to keep back an intended gift: “long expected is highest prized”; whereas from Max. ccxxxvi we learn that “the promptness of the gift obliges the more strongly.” Which maxim are we to act upon? That depends on circumstances, and the judgment that can decide on the circumstances can

do without the maxims. I cannot therefore promise success in the world to whomsoever may read this book; otherwise I should perhaps not have published it. But whether Gracián’s maxims are true or useful scarcely affects their value. To the student of literature as such, the flimsiest sentiment or the merest paradox aptly put is worth the sublimest truth ill expressed. And there can be little doubt that Gracián puts his points well and vigorously. I cannot hope to have reproduced adequately all the vigour and force of his style, the subtlety of his distinctions, or the shrewdness of his mother-wit. But enough, I hope, has emerged during the process of translation to convince the reader that Gracián’s Oráculo Manual has much wisdom in small compass and well put. 1 The ordinary authorities vary between 1594 and 1604. I follow Latassa y Ortin, Biblioteca nueva de los escritores Aragoneses, Pamplona, 1799, iii. 267 seq., practically the only original source for Gracián’s life and works. 2 Gracián mentions his brothers in his Agudeza. 3 On Gongora and his relation to Cultismo see Ticknor, Hist. Span. Lit. iii. 18 seq.; also Appendix G, “On the origin of Cultismo.” Ticknor is, however, somewhat prejudiced against any form of Cultismo. 4 See Notes to Maxims xxvi, xxxviii, xl, xlii, xliv, xl, lxiii, lxv, lxvii, xciv, xcviii, cvi, cxxvii. 5 See Notes to Maxims ii, xx, xxii, xxv, xlix, li, liii, lv, lvi, lix, lxix, lxxi, lxxvi, lxxxvii, cxxii, cxxvii, cclxxvii, ccxcv. 6 It is not impossible that the English translation of The Critick by Rycaut, 1681, may have suggested the Friday incidents of Robinson Crusoe, which was intended to be a more didactic book than it looks. 7 Ticknor also suggests that the Criticon was derived from the Euphormion of Barclay, the author of Argenis.

8 See the details in the Bibliographical Appendix to this Introduction. 9 Not to be misleading, I may mention that Gracián’s are generally in the infinitive. 10 Most persons have heard the cynical continuation of a modern: “Three fires are as good as a failure and three failures are as good as a fortune.” 11 One of our public men, I have been told, is known among his friends by the sobriquet of “Self-help by smiles.” 12 Mr. Oscar Wilde’s attention may be respectfully called to this maxim. 13 See supra and notes. 14 On Perez see Mr. Froude’s paper in his Spanish Story of the Armada. Perez was over in England and was of the Sidney set. 15 “Friends nowadays, human faces, hearts of brutes.” 16 The second title of the book is Arte de Prudencia, which I have adopted as the main title of my version. 17 Gracián was his favourite author; “Mein Gracián” he called him on one occasion (Memorabilien, p. 505).

LEADING MAXIMS i

Everything is at its Acme (Todo está ya en su punto)

ii

Character and Intellect (Genio y ingenio)

iii

Keep Matters for a Time in Suspense (Llevar sus cosas con suspencion)

iv

Knowledge and Courage (El saber y el valor)

v

Create a Feeling of Dependence (Hazer depender)

vi

A Man at his Highest Point (Hombre en su pinto)

vii

Avoid Victories over Superiors (Escusar vitorias del patron)

viii

To be without Passions (Hombre inapasionable)

ix

Avoid the Faults of your Nation (Desmentir los achaques de su nation)

x

Fortune and Fame (Fortuna y Fama)

xi

Cultivate those who can teach you (Tratar con quien se pueda aprender)

xii

Nature and Art (Naturaleza y Arte)

xiii

Act sometimes on Second Thoughts, sometimes on First Impulse (Obrar de intencion, ya segunda y ya primera)

xiv

The Thing Itself and the Way it is done (La realidad ye el modo)

xv

Keep Ministering Spirits (Tener ingenios auxiliares)

xvi

Knowledge and Good Intentions (Saber con recta intention)

xvii

Vary the Mode of Action (Variar de tenor en el obrar)

xviii

Application and Ability (Aplicacion y Minerva)

xix

Arouse no Exaggerated Expectations on entering (No entrar con sobrada expectation)

xx

A Man of the Age (Hombre en su siglo)

xxi

The Art of being Lucky (Arte para ser dichoso)

xxii

A Man of Knowledge to the Point (Hombre de plausibles noticias)

xxiii

Be Spotless (No tener algun desdoro)

xxiv

Keep the Imagination under Control (Templar la imaginacion)

xxv

Know how to take a Hint (Buen entendedor)

xxvi

Find out each Man’s Thumbscrew (Hallarle su torcedor á cada uno)

xxvii

Prize Intensity more than Extent (Pagarse mas de Intenciones que de Extenciones)

xxviii

Common in Nothing (En nada vulgar)

xxix

A Man of Rectitude (Hombre de entereza)

xxx

Have naught to do with Occupations of Ill-repute (No hazer profesion de empleos desautorizados)

xxxi

Select the Lucky and avoid the Unlucky (Conocer los afortunados para la election y los desdichados para la fuga)

xxxii

Have the Reputation of being Gracious (Estar en opinion de dár gusto)

xxxiii

Know how to Withdraw (Saber abstraer)

xxxiv

Know your strongest Point (Conocer su realce Rey)

xxxv

Think over Things, most over the most Important (Hazer concepto y mas de lo que importa mas)

xxxvi

In Acting or Refraining, weigh your Luck (Tener tanteada su Fortuna, para el proceder, para desempeñarse)

xxxvii

Keep a Store of Sarcasms, and know how to use them (Conocer y saber usar de las varrillas)

xxxviii

Leave your Luck while Winning (Saberse dexar ganando con la fortuna)

xxxix

Recognise when Things are ripe, and then enjoy them (Conocer las cosas en su punto, en su sazon y saberlas lograr)

xl

The Goodwill of People (Gracia de las gentes)

xli

Never Exaggerate (Nunca exagerar)

xlii

Born to command (Del natural Imperio)

xliii

Think with the Few and speak with the Many (Sentir con los menos y hablar con los mas)

xliv

Sympathy with great Minds (Simpatía con los grandes varones)

xiv

Use, but do not abuse, Cunning (Usar, no abusar de las reflexas)

xlvi

Master your Antipathies (Corregir su antipatia)

xlvii

Avoid “Affairs of Honour” (Huir los empeño)

xlviii

Be Thorough (Hombre con fondos)

xlix

Observation and judgment (Hombre juyzioso y notante)

l

Never lose Self-respect (Nunca perderse el respeto á sí mismo)

li

Know how to Choose well (Hombre de buena election)

lii

Never be put out (Nunca descomponerse)

liii

Diligent and Intelligent (Diligente y inteligente)

liv

Know how to show your Teeth (Tener brios á lo cuerdo)

lv

Wait (Hombre de espera)

lvi

Have Presence of Mind (Tener buenos repentes)

lvii

Slow and Sure (Mas seguros son los pensados)

lviii

Adapt Yourself to your Company (Saberse atemperar)

lix

Finish off well (Hombre de buen dexo)

lx

A Sound judgment (Buenos dictamenes)

lxi

To Excel in what is Excellent (Eminencia en lo mejor)

lxii

Use good Instruments (Obrar con buenos instrumentos)

lxiii

To be the First of the Kind is an Excellence (Excelencia de primero)

lxiv

Avoid Worry (Saberse escusar pesares)

lxv

Elevated Taste (Gusto relevante)

lxvi

See that Things end well (Atencion que salgan bien las cosas)

lxvii

Prefer Callings en Evidence (Preferir los empleos plausibles)

lxviii

It is better to help with Intelligence than with Memory (Dar entendimiento es de mas primor que el dár memoria)

lxix

Do not give way to every common Impulse (No rendirse á un vulgar humor)

lxx

Know how to Refuse (Saber negar)

lxxi

Do not Vacillate (No ser desigual)

lxxii

Be Resolute (Hombre de resolution)

lxxiii

Utilise Slips (Saber usar del desliz)

lxxiv

Do not be Unsociable (No ser intratable)

lxxv

Choose an Heroic Ideal (Elegir idea heroyca)

lxxvi

Do not always be jesting (No estár siempre de burlas)

lxxvii

Be all Things to all Men (Saber hazerse á todos)

lxxviii

The Art of undertaking Things (Arte en el intentar)

lxxix

A Genial Disposition (Genio genial)

lxxx

Take care to get Information (Atencion al informarse)

lxxxi

Renew your Brilliance (Usar el renovar su lucimiento)

lxxxii

Drain Nothing to the Dregs, neither Good nor Ill (Nunca apurar, ni el mal, ni el bien)

lxxxiii

Allow Yourself some venial Fault (Permitese algun venial desliz)

lxxxiv

Make use of your Enemies (Saber usar de los enemigos)

lxxxv

Do not play Manille (No ser malilla)

lxxxvi

Prevent Scandal (Prevenir las malas vozes)

lxxxvii

Culture and Elegance (Cultura y aliño)

lxxxviii

Let your Behaviour be Fine and Noble (Sea el trato por mayor procurando la sublimida en él)

lxxxix

Know Yourself (Comprehension de sí)

xc

The Secret of Long Life (Arte para vivir mucho)

xci

Never set to work at Anything if you have any Doubts of its Prudence (Obrar siempre sin escrupolos de imprudencia)

xcii

Transcendant Wisdom (Seso transcendental)

xciii

Versatility (Hombre universal)

xciv

Keep the extent of your (Incomprehensibilidad de caudal)

xcv

Keep Expectation alive (Saber entretenir la expectation)

xcvi

The highest Discretion (De la gran sinderesis)

xcvii

Obtain and preserve a Reputation (Conseguir y conservar la reputation)

xcviii

Write your Intentions in Cypher (Cifrar la voluntad)

xcix

Reality and Appearance (Realidad y aparencia)

c

A Man without Illusions, a wise Christian, a philosophic Courtier (Varon desengañado, Christiana sabio, Cortesano filosofo)

Abilities

unknown

ci

One half of the World laughs at the other, and Fools are they all (La mitad del mundo se está riendo á la otra mitad, con necedad de todos)

cii

Be able to stomach big slices of Luck (Estomago para grander bocados de la fortuna)

ciii

Let each keep up his Dignity (Cada uno la magestad en su modo)

civ

Try your hand at Office (Tener tomado el pulso á los empleos)

cv

Don’t be a Bore (No cansar)

cvi

Do not parade your Position (No afectar la fortuna)

cvii

Show no Self-satisfaction (No mostrar satisfaccion de sí)

cviii

The Path to Greatness is along with Others (Atajo para ser persona, saber ladear)

cix

Be not Censorious (No ser acriminador)

cx

Do not wait till you are a Sinking Sun (No aguardar á ser sol que se pone)

cxi

Have Friends (Tener amigos)

cxii

Gain Good-will (Ganar la pia aficcion)

cxiii

In Prosperity prepare for Adversity (Prevenirse en la fortuna prospera para la adversa)

cxiv

Never Compete (Nunca competir)

cxv

Get used to the Failings of your Familiars (Hazerse á las malas condiciones de los familiares)

cxvi

Only act with Honourable Men (Tratar siempre con gente de obligaciones)

cxvii

Never talk of Yourself (Nunca hablar de sí)

cxviii

Acquire the Reputation of Courtesy (Cobrar fama de cortés)

cxix

Avoid becoming Disliked (No hazerse de mal querer)

cxx

Live Practically (Vivir á lo platico)

cxxi

Do not make a Business of what is no Business (No hazar negocio del no negocio)

cxxii

Distinction in Speech and Action (Señorio en el dezir y en el hazar)

cxxiii

Avoid Affectation (Hombre desafectado)

cxxiv

Get Yourself missed (Llegar á ser deseados)

cxxv

Do not be a Black List (No ser libro verde)

cxxvi

Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in not hiding it when committed (No es necio el que haze la necedad, sino el que hecha no la sabe encubrir)

cxxvii

Grace in Everything (El despojo en todo)

cxxviii

Highmindedness (Alteza de animo)

cxxix

Never Complain (Nunca quexarse)

cxxx

Do and be seen Doing (Hazer y hazer parecer)

cxxxi

Nobility of Feeling (Galantería de condition)

cxxxii

Revise your Judgments (Usar del reconsejo)

cxxxiii

Better Mad with the rest of the World than Wise alone (Antes loco con todos que cuerdo á solas)

cxxxiv

Double your Resources (Doblar los requisitos de la vida)

cxxxv

Do not nourish the Spirit of Contradiction (No tenga espiritu de contradicion)

cxxxvi

Post Yourself in the Centre of Things (Ponerse bien en las materias)

cxxxvii

The Sage should be Self-sufficing (Bastase á sí mismo el sabio)

cxxxviii

The Art of letting Things alone (Arte de dexar estár)

cxxxix

Recognise unlucky Days (Conocer el dia aziago)

cxl

Find the Good in a Thing at once (Hallar luego con lo buena en cada cosa)

cxli

Do not listen to Yourself (No escucharse)

cxlii

Never from Obstinacy take the Wrong Side because your Opponent has anticipated you in taking the Right One (Nunca por tema seguir el peor partido porque el contrario se adelantó y escogeó el mejor)

cxliii

Never become Paradoxical in order to avoid the Trite (No dár en paradoxo por huir de vulgar)

cxliv

Begin with Another’s to end with your Own (Entrar con la agena para salir con la suya)

cxlv

Do not show your wounded Finger (No descubrir el dedo malo)

cxlvi

Look into the Interior of Things (Mirar por dentro)

cxlvii

Do not be Inaccessible (No ser inaccessible)

cxlviii

Have the Art of Conversation (Tener el arte de conversar)

cxlix

Know how to put off Ills on Others (Saber declinar á otro los males)

cl

Know how to get your Price for Things (Saber vender sus cosas)

cli

Think beforehand (Pensar anticipado)

clii

Never have a Companion who casts you in the Shade (Nunca acompañarse con quien que pueda deslucir)

cliii

Beware of entering where there is a great Gap to be filled (Huya de entrar á llenar grandes vacios)

cliv

Do not Believe, or Like, lightly (No ser facil en creer ni en querer)

clv

The Art of getting into a Passion (Arte en el apassionarse)

clvi

Select your friends (Amigos de eleccion)

clvii

Do not make Mistakes about Character (No engañarse en las personas)

clviii

Make use of your Friends (Saber usar de los amigos)

clix

Put up with Fools (Saber sufrir necios)

clx

Be careful in Speaking (Hablar de atento)

clxi

Know your pet Faults (Conocer los defectos dulces)

clxii

How to triumph over Rivals and Detractors (Saber triunfar de la emulation y malevolencia)

clxiii

Never, from Sympathy with the unfortunate, involve Yourself in his Fate (Nunca por la compassion del infeliz se ha de incurrir en la desgracia del afortunado)

clxiv

Throw Straws in the Air (Echar al ayre algunas cosas)

clxv

Wage War Honourably (Hazer buena guerra)

clxvi

Distinguish the Man of Words from the Man of Deeds (Diferenciar el hombre de palabras del de obras)

clxvii

Know how to take your own Part (Saber se ayudar)

clxviii

Do not indulge in the Eccentricities of Folly (No dár en monstruo de la necedad)

clxix

Be more careful not to Miss once than to Hit a hundred times (Atencion á no errar una mas que á acertar ciento)

clxx

In all Things keep Something in Reserve (Usar del retén en todas las cosas)

clxxi

Waste not Influence (No gastar el favor)

clxxii

Never contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose (No empeñarse con quien no tiene que perder)

clxxiii

Do not be Glass in Intercourse, still less in Friendship (No ser de vitrio en el trato y menos en la amistad)

clxxiv

Do not live in a Hurry (No vivir apriesa)

clxxv

A Solid Man (Hombre substancial)

clxxvi

Have Knowledge, or know those that have Knowledge (Saber o escuchar á quien sabe)

clxxvii

Avoid Familiarities in Intercourse (Escusar llanezas en el trato)

clxxviii

Trust your Heart (Creer al coraçon)

clxxix

Reticence is the Seal of Capacity (La retentiva es el sello de la capacidad)

clxxx

Never guide the Enemy to what he has to do (Nunca regirse por lo que el enemigo avia de hazer)

clxxxi

The Truth, but not the whole Truth (Sin mentir, no dezir todas las verdades)

clxxxii

A Grain of Boldness in Everything (Un grano de audacia con todo)

clxxxiii

Do not hold your Views too firmly (No aprender fuertemente)

clxxxiv

Do not be Ceremonious (No ser ceremonial)

clxxxv

Never stake your Credit on a single Cast (Nunca exponer el credito á la prueba de sola una vez)

clxxxvi

Recognise Faults, however high placed (Conocer los defectos por mas autorizados que ester)

clxxxvii

Do pleasant Things Yourself, unpleasant things through Others (Todo lo favorable, obrarlo por sí, todo lo odioso, por terceros)

clxxxviii Be the Bearer of Praise (Traer que alabar) clxxxix

Utilise Another’s Wants (Valerse de la privacion agena)

cxc

Find Consolation in all Things (Hallar el consuelo en todo)

cxci

Do not take Payment in Politeness (No pagarse de la mucha cortesia)

cxcii

Peaceful Life, a long Life (Hombre de gran paz hombre de

mucha vida) cxciii

Watch him that begins with Another’s to end with his Own (Atencion al que entra con agena por salir á la suya)

cxciv

Have reasonable Views of Yourself and of your Affairs (Concebir de sí y de sus cosas cuerdamente)

cxcv

Know how to Appreciate (Saber estimar)

cxcvi

Know your ruling Star (Conocer su estrella)

cxcvii

Do not carry Fools on your Back (Nunca embaraçarse con los necios)

cxcvii

Know how to transplant Yourself (Saberse transplantar)

cxcix

To find a proper Place by Merit, not by Presumption (Saberse hazer lugar á lo cuerdo, no á lo entremetido)

cc

Leave Something to wish for (Tener que desear)

cci

They are all Fools who seem so besides half the rest (Son tontos todos los que lo parecen y la mitad de los que no le parecen)

ccii

Words and Deeds make the Perfect Man (Dichos y hechos hazen un varon consumado)

cciii

Know the great Men of your Age (Conocer las eminencias de su siglo)

cciv

Attempt easy Tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy (Lo facil se ha de emprender como dificultoso y lo dificultoso como facil)

ccv

Know how to play the Card of Contempt (Saber jugar del desprechio)

ccvi

Know that there are vulgar Natures everywhere (Sepase que ay vulgo en todas partes)

ccvii

Be Moderate (Usar del reporte)

ccviii

Do not die of the Fools’ Disease (No morir de achaque de necio)

ccix

Keep Yourself free from common Follies (Librarse de las comunes necedades)

ccx

Know how to play the Card of Truth (Saber jugar de la verdad)

ccxi

In Heaven all is bliss (En el cielo todo es contento)

ccxii

Keep to Yourself the final Touches of your Art (Reservarse siempre las ultimas tretas del arte)

ccxiii

Know how to Contradict (Saber contradecir)

ccxiv

Do not turn one Blunder into two (No hazer de una necedad dos)

ccxv

Watch him that acts on Second Thoughts (Atencion al que llega de segunda intencion)

ccxvi

Be Expressive (Tener la declarativa)

ccxvii

Neither Love nor Hate for ever (No se ha de querer ni aborrecer para siempre)

ccxviii

Never act from Obstinacy but from Knowledge (Nunca obrar por tema sino por intencion)

ccxix

Do not pass for a Hypocrite (No ser tenido por hombre de artificio)

ccxx

If you cannot clothe yourself in Lionskin use Foxpelt (Quando

no puede uno vestirse la piel del Leon, vestase la de la Vulpeja) ccxxi

Do not seize Occasions to embarrass Yourself or Others (No ser ocasionado ni para empeñarse, ni para empeñar)

ccxxii

Reserve is proof of Prudence (Hombre detenido evidencia de prudente)

ccxxiii

Be not Eccentric (No ser muy individuado)

ccxxiv

Never take Things against the Grain (Saber tomar las cosas nunca al repelo)

ccxxv

Know your chief Fault (Conocer su defecto Rey)

ccxxvi

Take care to be Obliging (Atencion á obligar)

ccxxvii

Do not be the Slave of First Impressions (No ser de primera Impression)

ccxxviii

Do not be a Scandalmonger (No tener voz de mala voz)

ccxxix

Plan out your Life wisely (Saber repartir su vida á lo discreto)

ccxxx

Open your Eyes betimes (Abrir los ojos con tiempo)

ccxxxi

Never let Things be seen half-finished (Nunca permitir á medio hazer las cosas)

ccxxxii

Have a Touch of the Trader (Tener un punto de negociante)

ccxxxiii

Let not the proffered Morsel be distasteful (No errarle el golpe al gusto)

ccxxxiv

Never trust your Honour to another, unless you have his in Pledge (Nunca fiar reputacion sin prendas de honra agena)

ccxxxv

Know how to Ask (Saber pedir)

ccxxxvi

Make an Obligation beforehand of what would have to be a Reward afterwards (Hazer obligation antes de lo que havia de ser premio despues)

ccxxxvii

Never share the Secrets of your Superiors (Nunca partir secretos con mayores)

ccxxxviii Know what is wanting in Yourself (Conocer la pieza que falta) ccxxxix

Do not be Captious (No ser reagudo)

ccxl

Make use of Folly (Saber usar de la necedad)

ccxli

Put up with Raillery, but do not practise it (Las burlas sufrirlas, pero no usarlas)

ccxlii

Push Advantages (Seguir los alcançes)

ccxliii

Do not be too much of a Dove (No ser todo colombino)

ccxliv

Create a feeling of Obligation (Saber obligar)

ccxlv

Original and out-of-the-way Views (Discurrir tal vez á lo singular y fuera de lo comun)

ccxlvi

Never offer Satisfaction unless it is demanded (Nunca dár satisfacion á quien no la pedia)

ccxlvii

Know a little more, Live a little less (Saber un poco mas, y vivir un poco menos)

ccxlviii

Do not go with the last Speaker (No se le lleve el ultimo)

ccxlix

Never begin Life with what should end it (No començar á vivir por donde se ha de acabar)

ccl

When to change the Conversation (Quando se ha de discurrir a reves)

ccli

Use human Means as if there were no divine ones, and divine as if there were no human ones (Hanse de procurar los medios humanos como sino huviesse Divinos, y los Divinos como sino huviesse humanos)

cclii

Neither belong entirely to Yourself nor entirely to Others (Ni todo suyo ni todo ageno)

ccliii

Do not Explain overmuch (No allanarse sobrado en el concepto)

ccliv

Never despise an Evil, however small (No despreciar el mal por poco)

cclv

Do Good a little at a time, but often (Saber hazer el bien poco y muchas vezes)

cclvi

Go armed against Discourtesy (Ir siempre prevenido contra los discorteses)

cclvii

Never let Matters come to a Rupture (Nunca llegar á rompimiento)

cclviii

Find out some one to share your Troubles (Buscar quien le ayude a llevar las infelicidades)

cclix

Anticipate Injuries and turn them into Favours (Prevenir las injurias y hazar dellas favores)

cclx

We belong to none and none to us entirely (Ni será ni tendrá á ninguno todo por suyo)

cclxi

Do not follow up a Folly (No proseguir la necedad)

cclxii

Be able to Forget (Saber olvidar)

cclxiii

Many Things of Taste one should not possess oneself (Muchas

cosas de gusto no se han de poseer en propricdad) cclxiv

Have no careless Days (No tenga dias de descuydo)

cclxv

Set those under you difficult Tasks (Saber empeñar los dependientes)

cclxvi

Do not become Bad from sheer Goodness (No ser malo de puro bueno)

cclxvii

Silken Words, Sugared Manners (Palabras de seda con suavidad de condition)

cclxviii

The Wise does at once what the Fool does at last (Haga al principio el cuerdo lo que el necio al fin)

cclxix

Make use of the Novelty of your Position (Valgase de su novedad)

cclxx

Do not condemn alone that which pleases all (No condenar solo lo que á muchos agrada)

cclxxi

In every Occupation if you know little stick to the safest (El que supiere poco tengase siempre á lo mas seguro en toda profession)

cclxxii

Sell The Things the Tariff of Courtesy (Vender las cosas á precio de cortesia)

cclxxiii

Comprehend their Dispositions with whom (Comprehension de los genios con quien trata)

cclxxiv

Be Attractive (Tener la atractiva)

cclxxv

Join in the Game as far as Decency permits (Corriente pero no indecente)

cclxxvi

Know how to renew your Character (Saber renovar el genio)

you

deal

cclxxvii

Display Yourself (Hombre de ostentacion)

cclxxviii Avoid Notoriety in all Things (Huir la nota en toda) cclxxix

Do not contradict the Contradicter (No dezir al contradezir)

cclxxx

Be Trustworthy (Hombre de ley)

cclxxxi

Find Favour with Men of Sense (Gracia con los entendidos)

cclxxxii

Make use of Absence to make yourself more esteemed or valued (Usar de la ausencia ó para el respecta, ó para la estimation)

cclxxxiii Have the Gift of Discovery (Hombre de Inventiva) cclxxxiv

Do not be Importunate (No ser entremedido)

cclxxxv

Never die of another’s Ill-luck (No perecer de desdicha agena)

cclxxxvi

Do not become responsible for all or for every one (No dexarse obligar del todo ni de todos)

cclxxxvii Never act in a Passion (Nunca obrar apassionado) cclxxxviii Live for the Moment (Vivir á la ocasion) cclxxxix

Nothing depreciates a Man more than to show he is a Man like other Men (El mayor desdoro de un hombre es dár muestras de que es hombre)

ccxc

’Tis a piece of Good Fortune to combine Men’s Love and Respect (Es felicidad juntar el aprecio con el afecta)

ccxci

Know how to Test (Saber hazer la tentativa)

ccxcii

Let your personal Qualities surpass those of your Office (Vença el natural las obligaciones del empleo)

ccxciii

Maturity (De la madurez)

ccxciv

Be moderate in your Views (Moderarse en el sentir)

ccxcv

Do not Affect what you have not effected (No hazañero sino hazañoso)

ccxcvi

Noble Qualities (Varon de prendas y magestuosas)

ccxcvii

Act always as if your Acts were seen (Obrar siempre como á vista)

ccxcviii

Three Things go to a Prodigy (Tres cosas hazer un prodigio)

ccxcix

Leave off Hungry (Dexar con hambre)

ccc

In one word, be a Saint (En una palabra santo)

TO THE READER No laws for the just, no counsels for the wise. Yet no one ever knew as much as he had need. One thing you must forgive, another, thank me for. I have called this manual of worldly wisdom an Oracle, for it is one in curtness and sententiousness. On the other hand, I offer you in one all the twelve works of Gracián. Each of these is so highly thought of that his Prudent Man had scarcely appeared in Spain than it was enjoyed among the French, in whose language it was translated and at whose court it was printed. May this be Wisdom’s bill of fare at the banquet of her sages, in which she inscribes the items of the feast of reason to be found in Gracián’s other works. Don Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa.

THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM i Everything is at its Acme; especially the art of making one’s way in the world. There is more required nowadays to make a single wise man than formerly to make Seven Sages, and more is needed nowadays to deal with a single person than was required with a whole people in former times. ii Character and Intellect: the two poles of our capacity; one without the other is but halfway to happiness. Intellect sufficeth not, character is also needed. On the other hand, it is the fool’s misfortune, to fail in obtaining the position, the employment, the neighbourhood, and the circle of friends that suit him. iii Keep Matters for a Time in Suspense. Admiration at their novelty heightens the value of your achievements, It is both useless and insipid to play with the cards on the table. If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse expectation, especially when the importance of your position makes you the object of general attention. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very mystery arouses veneration. And when you explain, be not too explicit, just as you do not expose your inmost thoughts in ordinary intercourse. Cautious silence is the holy of holies of worldly wisdom. A resolution declared is never highly thought of; it only leaves room for criticism. And if it happens to fail, you are doubly unfortunate. Besides you imitate the Divine way when you cause men to wonder and watch. iv Knowledge and Courage are the elements of Greatness. They give immortality, because they are immortal. Each is as much as he knows, and the wise can do anything. A

man without knowledge, a world without light. Wisdom and strength, eyes and hands. Knowledge without courage is sterile. v Create a Feeling of Dependence. Not he that adorns but he that adores makes a divinity. The wise man would rather see men needing him than thanking him. To keep them on the threshold of hope is diplomatic, to trust to their gratitude boorish; hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one. More is to be got from dependence than from courtesy. He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well, and the orange once sucked falls from the golden platter into the waste-basket. When dependence disappears, good behaviour goes with it as well as respect. Let it be one of the chief lessons of experience to keep hope alive without entirely satisfying it, by preserving it to make oneself always needed even by a patron on the throne. But let not silence be carried to excess lest you go wrong, nor let another’s failing grow incurable for the sake of your own advantage. vi A Man at his Highest Point. We are not born perfect: every day we develop in our personality and in our calling till we reach the highest point of our completed being, to the full round of our accomplishments, of our excellences. This is known by the purity of our taste, the clearness of our thought, the maturity of our judgment, and the firmness of our will. Some never arrive at being complete; somewhat is always awanting: others ripen late. The complete man, wise in speech, prudent in act, is admitted to the familiar intimacy of discreet persons, is even sought for by them. vii Avoid Victories over Superiors. All victories breed hate, and that over your superior is foolish or fatal. Superiority is always detested, à fortiori superiority over superiority. Caution can gloss over common advantages; for example, good looks may be cloaked by careless attire. There be some that will grant you precedence in good luck or good temper, but none in good sense, least of all a prince; for good sense is a royal prerogative, any claim to that is a case of lèse majesté. They are princes, and wish to be so in that most princely of

qualities. They will allow a man to help them but not to surpass them, and will have any advice tendered them appear like a recollection of something they have forgotten rather than as a guide to something they cannot find. The stars teach us this finesse with happy tact; though they are his children and brilliant like him, they never rival the brilliancy of the sun. viii To be without Passions. ’Tis a privilege of the highest order of mind. Their very eminence redeems them from being affected by transient and low impulses. There is no higher rule than that over oneself, over one’s impulses: there is the triumph of free will. While passion rules the character, no aiming at high office; the less the higher. It is the only refined way of avoiding scandals; nay, ’tis the shortest way back to good repute. ix Avoid the Faults of your Nation. Water shares the good or bad qualities of the strata through which it flows, and man those of the climate in which he is born. Some owe more than others to their native land, because there is a more favourable sky in the zenith. There is not a nation even among the most civilised that has not some fault peculiar to itself which other nations blame by way of boast or as a warning. ’Tis a triumph of cleverness to correct in oneself such national failings, or even to hide them: you get great credit for being unique among your fellows, and as it is less expected of you it is esteemed the more. There are also family failings as well as faults of position, of office or of age. If these all meet in one person and are not carefully guarded against, they make an intolerable monster. x Fortune and Fame. Where the one is fickle the other is enduring. The first for life, the second afterwards; the one against envy, the other against oblivion. Fortune is desired, at times assisted: fame is earned. The desire for fame springs from man’s best part. It was and is the sister of the giants; it always goes to extremes—horrible monsters or brilliant prodigies. xi Cultivate those who can teach you.

Let friendly intercourse be a school of knowledge, and culture be taught through conversation: thus you make your friends your teachers and mingle the pleasures of conversation with the advantages of instruction. Sensible persons thus enjoy alternating pleasures: they reap applause for what they say, and gain instruction from what they hear. We are always attracted to others by our own interest, but in this case it is of a higher kind. Wise men frequent the houses of great noblemen not because they are temples of vanity, but as theatres of good breeding. There be gentlemen who have the credit of worldly wisdom, because they are not only themselves oracles of all nobleness by their example and their behaviour, but those who surround them form a well-bred academy of worldly wisdom of the best and noblest kind. xii Nature and Art: material and workmanship. There is no beauty unadorned and no excellence that would not become barbaric if it were not supported by artifice: this remedies the evil and improves the good. Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art. Without this the best of natural dispositions is uncultured, and half is lacking to any excellence if training is absent. Every one has something unpolished without artificial training, and every kind of excellence needs some polish. xiii Act sometimes on Second Thoughts, sometimes on First Impulse. Man’s life is a warfare against the malice of men. Sagacity fights with strategic changes of intention: it never does what it threatens, it aims only at escaping notice. It aims in the air with dexterity and strikes home in an unexpected direction, always seeking to conceal its game. It lets a purpose appear in order to attract the opponent’s attention, but then turns round and conquers by the unexpected. But a penetrating intelligence anticipates this by watchfulness and lurks in ambush. It always understands the opposite of what the opponent wishes it to understand, and recognises every feint of guile. It lets the first impulse pass by and waits for the second, or even the third. Sagacity now rises to higher flights on seeing its artifice foreseen, and tries to deceive by truth itself, changes its game in order to change its deceit, and cheats by not cheating, and founds deception on the greatest

candour. But the opposing intelligence is on guard with increased watchfulness, and discovers the darkness concealed by the light and deciphers every move, the more subtle because more simple. In this way the guile of the Python combats the far darting rays of Apollo. xiv The Thing Itself and the Way it is done. “Substance” is not enough: “accident” is also required, as the scholastics say. A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything, gilds a No, sweetens truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself. The how plays a large part in affairs, a good manner steals into the affections. Fine behaviour is a joy in life, and a pleasant expression helps out of a difficulty in a remarkable way. xv Keep Ministering Spirits. It is a privilege of the mighty to surround themselves with the champions of intellect; these extricate them from every fear of ignorance, these worry out for them the moot points of every difficulty. ’Tis a rare greatness to make use of the wise, and far exceeds the barbarous taste of Tigranes, who had a fancy for captive monarchs as his servants. It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters. ’Tis a great thing to know, little to live: no real life without knowledge. There is remarkable cleverness in studying without study, in getting much by means of many, and through them all to become wise. Afterwards you speak in the council chamber on behalf of many, and as many sages speak through your mouth as were consulted beforehand: you thus obtain the fame of an oracle by others’ toil. Such ministering spirits distil the best books and serve up the quintessence of wisdom. But he that cannot have sages in service should have them for his friends. xvi Knowledge and Good Intentions together ensure continuance of success. A fine intellect wedded to a wicked will was always an unnatural monster. A wicked will envenoms all excellences: helped by knowledge it only ruins with greater subtlety. ’Tis a miserable superiority that only results in ruin. Knowledge without sense is double folly.

xvii Vary the Mode of Action; not always the same way, so as to distract attention, especially if there be a rival. Not always from first impulse; they will soon recognise the uniformity, and by anticipating, frustrate your designs. It is easy to kill a bird on the wing that flies straight: not so one that twists. Nor always act on second thoughts: they can discern the plan the second time. The enemy is on the watch, great skill is required to circumvent him. The gamester never plays the card the opponent expects, still less that which he wants. xviii Application and Ability. There is no attaining eminence without both, and where they unite there is the greatest eminence. Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it. Work is the price which is paid for reputation. What costs little is little worth. Even for the highest posts it is only in some cases application that is wanting, rarely the talent. To prefer moderate success in great things than eminence in a humble post has the excuse of a generous mind, but not so to be content with humble mediocrity when you could shine among the highest. Thus nature and art are both needed, and application sets on them the seal. xix Arouse no Exaggerated Expectations on entering. It is the usual ill-luck of all celebrities not to fulfil afterwards the expectations beforehand formed of them. The real can never equal the imagined, for it is easy to form ideals but very difficult to realise them. Imagination weds Hope and gives birth to much more than things are in themselves. However great the excellences, they never suffice to fulfil expectations, and as men find themselves disappointed with their exorbitant expectations they are more ready to be disillusionised than to admire. Hope is a great falsifier of truth; let skill guard against this by ensuring that fruition exceeds desire. A few creditable attempts at the beginning are sufficient to arouse curiosity without pledging one to the final object. It is better that reality should surpass the design and is better than was thought. This rule does not apply to the wicked, for the same exaggeration is a great aid to them; they are defeated amid general applause, and what seemed at first extreme ruin comes to be thought quite bearable.

xx A Man of the Age. The rarest individuals depend on their age. It is not every one that finds the age he deserves, and even when he finds it he does not always know how to utilise it. Some men have been worthy of a better century, for every species of good does not always triumph. Things have their period; even excellences are subject to fashion. The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is not his century many others will be. xxi The Art of being Lucky. There are rules of luck: it is not all chance with the wise: it can be assisted by care. Some content themselves with placing themselves confidently at the gate of Fortune, waiting till she opens it. Others do better, and press forward and profit by their clever boldness, reaching the goddess and winning her favour on the wings of their virtue and valour. But on a true philosophy there is no other umpire than virtue and insight; for there is no luck or ill-luck except wisdom and the reverse. xxii A Man of Knowledge to the Point. Wise men arm themselves with tasteful and elegant erudition; a practical knowledge of what is going on not of a common kind but more like an expert. They possess a copious store of wise and witty sayings, and of noble deeds, and know how to employ them on fitting occasions. More is often taught by a jest than by the most serious teaching. Pat knowledge helps some more than the seven arts, be they ever so liberal. xxiii Be Spotless: the indispensable condition of perfection. Few live without some weak point, either physical or moral, which they pamper because they could easily cure it. The keenness of others often regrets to see a slight defect attaching itself to a whole assembly of elevated qualities, and yet a single cloud can hide the whole of the sun. There are likewise patches on our reputation which ill-will soon finds out and is continually noticing. The highest skill is to transform them into ornament. So Cæsar hid his natural defects with the laurel.

xxiv Keep the Imagination under Control; sometimes correcting, sometimes assisting it. For it is all-important for our happiness, and even sets the reason right. It can tyrannise, and is not content with looking on, but influences and even often dominates life, causing it to be happy or burdensome according to the folly to which it leads. For it makes us either contented or discontented with ourselves. Before some it continually holds up the penalties of action, and becomes the mortifying lash of these fools. To others it promises happiness and adventure with blissful delusion. It can do all this unless the most prudent self-control keeps it in subjection. xxv Know how to take a Hint. ’Twas once the art of arts to be able to discourse; now ’tis no longer sufficient. We must know how to take a hint, especially in disabusing ourselves. He cannot make himself understood who does not himself easily understand. But on the other hand there are pretended diviners of the heart and lynxes of the intentions. The very truths which concern us most can only be half spoken, but with attention we can grasp the whole meaning. When you hear anything favourable keep a tight rein on your credulity; if unfavourable, give it the spur. xxvi Find out each Man’s Thumbscrew. ’Tis the art of setting their wills in action. It needs more skill than resolution. You must know where to get at any one. Every volition has a special motive which varies according to taste. All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure. Skill consists in knowing these idols in order to bring them into play. Knowing any man’s mainspring of motive you have as it were the key to his will. Have resort to primary motors, which are not always the highest but more often the lowest part of his nature: there are more dispositions badly organised than well. First guess a man’s ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of will. xxvii Prize Intensity more than Extent.

Excellence resides in quality not in quantity. The best is always few and rare: much lowers value. Even among men giants are commonly the real dwarfs. Some reckon books by the thickness, as if they were written to try the brawn more than the brain. Extent alone never rises above mediocrity: it is the misfortune of universal geniuses that in attempting to be at home everywhere, are so nowhere. Intensity gives eminence, and rises to the heroic in matters sublime. xxviii Common in Nothing. First, not in taste. O great and wise, to be ill at ease when your deeds please the mob! The excesses of popular applause never satisfy the sensible. Some there are such chameleons of popularity that they find enjoyment not in the sweet savours of Apollo but in the breath of the mob. Secondly, not in intelligence. Take no pleasure in the wonder of the mob, for ignorance never gets beyond wonder. While vulgar folly wonders wisdom watches for the trick. xxix A Man of Rectitude clings to the sect of right with such tenacity of purpose that neither the passions of the mob nor the violence of the tyrant can ever cause him to transgress the bounds of right. But who shall be such a Phœnix of equity? What a scanty following has rectitude! Many praise it indeed, but—for others. Others follow it till danger threatens; then the false deny it, the politic conceal it. For it cares not if it fights with friendship, power, or even self-interest: then comes the danger of desertion. Then astute men make plausible distinctions so as not to stand in the way of their superiors or of reasons of state. But the straightforward and constant regard dissimulation as a kind of treason, and set more store on tenacity than on sagacity. Such are always to be found on the side of truth, and if they desert a party, they do not change from fickleness, but because the others have first deserted truth. xxx Have naught to do with Occupations of Ill-repute, still less with fads that bring more notoriety than repute. There are many fanciful sects, and from all the prudent man has to flee. There are bizarre

tastes that always take to their heart all that wise men repudiate; they live in love with singularity. This may make them well known indeed, but more as objects of ridicule than of repute. A cautious man does not even make profession of his wisdom, still less of those matters that make their followers ridiculous. These need not be specified, for common contempt has sufficiently singled them out. xxxi Select the Lucky and avoid the Unlucky. Ill-luck is generally the penalty of folly, and there is no disease so contagious to those who share in it. Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. The greatest skill at cards is to know when to discard; the smallest of current trumps is worth more than the ace of trumps of the last game. When in doubt, follow the suit of the wise and prudent; sooner or later they will win the odd trick. xxxii Have the Reputation of being Gracious. ’Tis the chief glory of the high and mighty to be gracious, a prerogative of kings to conquer universal goodwill. That is the great advantage of a commanding position—to be able to do more good than others. Those make friends who do friendly acts. On the other hand, there are some who lay themselves out for not being gracious, not on account of the difficulty, but from a bad disposition. In all things they are the opposite of Divine grace. xxxiii Know how to Withdraw. If it is a great lesson in life to know how to deny, it is a still greater to know how to deny oneself as regards both affairs and persons. There are extraneous occupations which eat away precious time. To be occupied in what does not concern you is worse than doing nothing. It is not enough for a careful man not to interfere with others, he must see that they do not interfere with him. One is not obliged to belong so much to all as not to belong at all to oneself. So with friends, their help should not be abused or more demanded from them than they themselves will grant. All excess is a failing, but above all in personal intercourse. A wise moderation in this best preserves the goodwill and esteem of all, for by this means that precious boon of courtesy is not gradually worn away. Thus you preserve your

genius free to select the elect, and never sin against the unwritten laws of good taste. xxxiv Know your strongest Point— —your pre-eminent gift; cultivate that and you will assist the rest. Every one would have excelled in something if he had known his strong point. Notice in what quality you surpass, and take charge of that. In some judgment excels, in others valour. Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing. Time disillusionises us too late of what first flattered the passions. xxv Think over Things, most over the most Important. All fools come to grief from want of thought. They never see even the half of things, and as they do not observe their own loss or gain, still less do they apply any diligence to them. Some make much of what imports little and little of much, always weighing in the wrong scale. Many never lose their common sense, because they have none to lose. There are matters which should be observed with the closest attention of the mind, and thenceforth kept in its lowest depths. The wise man thinks over everything, but with a difference, most profoundly where there is some profound difficulty, and thinks that perhaps there is more in it than he thinks. Thus his comprehension extends as far as his apprehension. xxxvi In Acting or Refraining, weigh your Luck. More depends on that than on noticing your temperament. If he is a fool who at forty applies to Hippocrates for health, still more is he one who then first applies to Seneca for wisdom. It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it. For something is to be done with it by waiting so as to use it at the proper moment, since it has periods and offers opportunities, though one cannot calculate its path, its steps are so irregular. When you find Fortune favourable, stride boldly forward, for she favours the bold and, being a woman, the young. But if you have bad luck, keep retired so as not to redouble the influence of your unlucky star. xxxvii Keep a Store of Sarcasms, and know how to use them.

This is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. Such sarcasms are often thrown out to test men’s moods, and by their means one often obtains the most subtle and penetrating touchstone of the heart. Other sarcasms are malicious, insolent, poisoned by envy or envenomed by passion, unexpected flashes which destroy at once all favour and esteem. Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors which could not be the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private malevolence. Other sarcasms, on the other hand, work favourably, confirming and assisting one’s reputation. But the greater the skill with which they are launched, the greater the caution with which they should be received and the foresight with which they should he foreseen. For here a knowledge of the evil is in itself a means of defence, and a shot foreseen always misses its mark. xxxviii Leave your Luck while Winning. All the best players do it. A fine retreat is as good as a gallant attack. Bring your exploits under cover when there are enough, or even when there are many of them. Luck long lasting was ever suspicious; interrupted seems safer, and is even sweeter to the taste for a little infusion of bitter-sweet. The higher the heap of luck, the greater the risk of a slip, and down comes all. Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favours by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders. xxxix Recognise when Things are ripe, and then enjoy them. The works of nature all reach a certain point of maturity; up to that they improve, after that they degenerate. Few works of art reach such a point that they cannot be improved. It is an especial privilege of good taste to enjoy everything at its ripest. Not all can do this, nor do all who can know this. There is a ripening point too for fruits of intellect; it is well to know this both for their value in use and for their value in exchange. xl The Goodwill of People. ’Tis much to gain universal admiration; more, universal love. Something depends on natural disposition, more on practice: the first founds, the

second then builds on that foundation. Brilliant parts suffice not, though they are presupposed; win good opinion and ’tis easy to win goodwill. Kindly acts besides are required to produce kindly feelings, doing good with both hands, good words and better deeds, loving so as to be loved. Courtesy is the politic witchery of great personages. First lay hand on deeds and then on pens; words follow swords; for there is goodwill to be won among writers, and it is eternal. xli Never Exaggerate. It is an important object of attention not to talk in superlatives, so as neither to offend against truth nor to give a mean idea of one’s understanding. Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one’s knowledge or one’s taste. Praise arouses lively curiosity, begets desire, and if afterwards the value does not correspond to the price, as generally happens, expectation revolts against the deception, and revenges itself by under-estimating the thing recommended and the person recommending. A prudent man goes more cautiously to work, and prefers to err by omission than by commission. Extraordinary things are rare, therefore moderate ordinary valuation. Exaggeration is a branch of lying, and you lose by it the credit of good taste, which is much, and of good sense, which is more. xlii Born to Command. It is a secret force of superiority not to have to get on by artful trickery but by an inborn power of rule. All submit to it without knowing why, recognising the secret vigour of connatural authority. Such magisterial spirits are kings by merit and lions by innate privilege. By the esteem which they inspire, they hold the hearts and minds of the rest. If their other qualities permit, such men are born to be the prime motors of the state. They per-form more by a gesture than others by a long harangue. xliii Think with the Few and speak with the Many. By swimming against the stream it is impossible to remove error, easy to fall into danger; only a Socrates can undertake it. To dissent from others’ views is regarded as an insult, because it is their condemnation. Disgust is

doubled on account of the thing blamed and of the person who praised it. Truth is for the few, error is both common and vulgar. The wise man is not known by what he says on the house-tops, for there he speaks not with his own voice but with that of common folly, however much his inmost thoughts may gainsay it. The prudent avoid being contradicted as much as contradicting: though they have their censure ready they are not ready to publish it. Thought is free, force cannot and should not be used to it. The wise man therefore retires into silence, and if he allows himself to come out of it, he does so in the shade and before few and fit persons. xliv Sympathy with great Minds. It is an heroic quality to agree with heroes. ’Tis like a miracle of nature for mystery and for use. There is a natural kinship of hearts and minds: its effects are such that vulgar ignorance scents witchcraft. Esteem established, goodwill follows, which at times reaches affection. It persuades without words and obtains without earning. This sympathy is sometimes active, sometimes passive, both alike felicific; the more so, the more sublime. ’Tis a great art to recognise, to distinguish and to utilise this gift. No amount of energy suffices without that favour of nature. xlv Use, but do not abuse, Cunning. One ought not to delight in it, still less to boast of it. Everything artificial should be concealed, most of all cunning, which is hated. Deceit is much in use; therefore our caution has to be redoubled, but not so as to show itself, for it arouses distrust, causes much annoy, awakens revenge, and gives rise to more ills than you would imagine. To go to work with caution is of great advantage in action, and there is no greater proof of wisdom. The greatest skill in any deed consists in the sure mastery with which it is executed. xlvi Master your Antipathies. We often allow ourselves to take dislikes, and that before we know anything of a person. At times this innate yet vulgar aversion attaches Itself to eminent personalities. Good sense masters this feeling, for there is nothing more discreditable than to dislike those better than ourselves. As sympathy with great men en-nobles us, so dislike to them degrades us.

xlvii Avoid “Affairs of Honour” —one of the chiefest aims of prudence. In men of great ability the extremes are kept far asunder, so that there is a long distance between them, and they always keep in the middle of their caution, so that they take time to break through it. It is easier to avoid such affairs than to come well out of them. They test our judgment; it is better to avoid them than to conquer in them. One affair of honour leads to another, and may lead to an affair of dishonour. There are men so constituted by nature or by nation that they easily enter upon such obligations. But for him that walks by the light of reason, such a matter requires long thinking over. There is more valour needed not to take up the affair than to conquer in it. When there is one fool ready for the occasion, one may excuse oneself from being the second. xlviii Be Thorough. How much depends on the person. The interior must be at least as much as the exterior. There are natures all frontage, like houses that for want of means have the portico of a palace leading to the rooms of a cottage. It is no use boring into such persons, although they bore you, for conversation flags after the first salutation. They prance through the first compliments like Sicilian barbs, but silence soon succeeds, for the flow of words soon ceases where there is no spring of thoughts. Others may be taken in by them because they themselves have but a view of the surface, but not the prudent, who look within them and find nothing there except material for scorn. xlix Observation and Judgment. A man with these rules things, not they him. He sounds at once the profoundest depths; he is a phrenologist by means of physiognomy. On seeing a person he understands him and judges of his inmost nature. From a few observations he deciphers the most hidden recesses of his nature. Keen observation, subtle insight, judicious inference: with these he discovers, notices, grasps, and comprehends everything. l Never lose Self-respect, or be too familiar with oneself. Let your own right feeling be the true

standard of your rectitude, and owe more to the strictness of your own selfjudgment than to all external sanctions. Leave off anything unseemly more from regard for your own self-respect than from fear of external authority. Pay regard to that and there is no need of Seneca’s imaginary tutor. li Know how to Choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices. To be choice, you must choose, and for this two things are needed: to be able to choose at all, and then to choose the best. There are many men of fecund and subtle mind, of keen judgment, of much learning, and of great observation who yet are at a loss when they come to choose. They always take the worst as if they had tried to go wrong. Thus this is one of the greatest gifts from above. lii Never be put out. ’Tis a great aim of prudence never to be embarrassed. It is the sign of a real man. of a noble heart, for magnanimity is not easily put out. The passions are the humours of the soul, and every excess in them weakens prudence; if they overflow through the mouth, the reputation will be in danger. Let a man therefore be so much and so great a master over himself that neither in the most fortunate nor in the most adverse circumstances can anything cause his reputation injury by disturbing his self-possession, but rather enhance it by showing his superiority. liii Diligent and Intelligent. Diligence promptly executes what intelligence slowly excogitates. Hurry is the failing of fools; they know not the crucial point and set to work without preparation. On the other hand, the wise more often fail from procrastination; foresight begets deliberation, and remiss action often nullifies prompt judgment. Celerity is the mother of good fortune. He has done much who leaves nothing over till to-morrow. Festina lente is a royal motto. liv Know how to show your Teeth.

Even hares can pull the mane of a dead lion. There is no joke about courage. Give way to the first and you must yield to the second, and so on till the last, and to gain your point at last costs as much trouble as would have gained much more at first. Moral courage exceeds physical; it should be like a sword kept ready for use in the scabbard of caution. It is the shield of great place; moral cowardice lowers one more than physical. Many have had eminent qualities, yet, for want of a stout heart, they passed inanimate lives and found a tomb in their own sloth. Wise Nature has thoughtfully combined in the bee the sweetness of its honey with the sharpness of its sting. lv Wait. It’s a sign of a noble heart dowered with patience, never to be in a hurry, never to be in a passion. First be master over yourself if you would be master over others. You must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the centre of opportunity. A wise reserve seasons the aims and matures the means. Time’s crutch effects more than the iron club of Hercules. God Himself chasteneth not with a rod but with time. He18 spake a great word who said, “Time and I against any two.” Fortune herself rewards waiting with the first prize. lvi Have Presence of Mind. The child of a happy promptitude of spirit. Owing to this vivacity and wideawakeness there is no fear of danger or mischance. Many reflect much only to go wrong in the end: others attain their aim without thinking of it beforehand. There are natures of Antiperistasis who work best in an emergency. They are like monsters who succeed in all they do offhand, but fail in aught they think over. A thing occurs to them at once or never: for them there is no court of appeal. Celerity wins applause because it proves remarkable capacity; subtlety of judgment, prudence in action. lvii Slow and Sure. Early enough if well. Quickly done can be quickly undone. To last an eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence counts; only

achievement endures. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for immortality. Worth much costs much. The precious metals are the heaviest. lviii Adapt Yourself to your Company. There is no need to show your ability before every one. Employ no more force than is necessary. Let there be no unnecessary expenditure either of knowledge or of power. The skilful falconer only flies enough birds to serve for the chase. If there is too much display to-day there will be nothing to show to-morrow. Always have some novelty wherewith to dazzle. To show something fresh each day keeps expectation alive and conceals the limits of capacity. lix Finish off well. In the house of Fortune, if you enter by the gate of pleasure you must leave by that of sorrow and vice versâ. You ought therefore to think of the finish, and attach more importance to a graceful exit than to applause on entrance. ’Tis the common lot of the unlucky to have a very fortunate outset and a very tragic end. The important point is not the vulgar applause on entrance —that comes to nearly all—but the general feeling at exit. Few in life are felt to deserve an encore. Fortune rarely accompanies any one to the door: warmly as she may welcome the coming, she speeds but coldly the parting guest. lx A Sound Judgment. Some are born wise, and with this natural advantage enter upon their studies, with a moiety already mastered. With age and experience their reason ripens, and thus they attain a sound judgment. They abhor everything whimsical as leading prudence astray, especially in matters of state, where certainty is so necessary, owing to the importance of the affairs involved. Such men deserve to stand by the helm of state either as pilots or as men at the wheel. lxi To Excel in what is Excellent. A great rarity among excellences. You cannot have a great man without

something pre-eminent. Mediocrities never win applause. Eminence in some distinguished post distinguishes one from the vulgar mob and ranks us with the elect. To be distinguished in a Small post is to be great in little: the more comfort, the less glory. The highest eminence in great affairs has the royal characteristic of exciting admiration and winning goodwill. lxii Use good Instruments. Some would have the subtlety of their wits proven by the meanness of their instruments. ’Tis a dangerous satisfaction, and deserves a fatal punishment. The excellence of a minister never diminished the greatness of his lord. All the glory of exploits reverts to the principal actor; also all the blame. Fame only does business with principals. She does not say, “This had good, that had bad servants,” but, “This was a good artist, that a bad one.” Let your assistants be selected and tested therefore, for you have to trust to them for an immortality of fame. lxiii To be the First of the Kind is an Excellence, and to be eminent in it as well, a double one. To have the first move is a great ad-vantage when the players are equal. Many a man would have been a veritable Phœnix if he had been the first of the sort. Those who come first are the heirs of Fame; the others get only a younger brother’s allowance: whatever they do, they cannot persuade the world they are anything more than parrots. The skill of prodigies may find a new path to eminence, but prudence accompanies them all the way. By the novelty of their enterprises sages write their names in the golden book of heroes. Some prefer to be first in things of minor import than second in greater exploits. lxiv Avoid Worry. Such prudence brings its own reward. It escapes much, and is thus the midwife of comfort and so of happiness. Neither give nor take bad news unless it can help. Some men’s ears are stuffed with the sweets of flattery; others with the bitters of scandal, while some cannot live without a daily annoyance no more than Mithridates could without poison. It is no rule of life to prepare for yourself lifelong trouble in order to give a temporary

enjoyment to another, however near and dear. You never ought to spoil your own chances to please another who advises and keeps out of the affair, and in all cases where to oblige another involves disobliging yourself, ’tis a standing rule that it is better he should suffer now than you afterwards and in vain. lxv Elevated Taste. You can train it like the intellect. Full knowledge whets desire and increases enjoyment. You may know a noble spirit by the elevation of his taste: it must be a great thing that can satisfy a great mind. Big bites for big mouths, lofty things for lofty spirits. Before their judgment the bravest tremble, the most perfect lose confidence. Things of the first importance are few; let appreciation be rare. Taste can be imparted by intercourse: great good luck to associate with the highest taste. But do not affect to be dissatisfied with everything: ’tis the extreme of folly, and more odious if from affectation than if from Quixotry. Some would have God create another world and other ideals to satisfy their fantastic imagination. lxvi See that Things end well. Some regard more the rigour of the game than the winning of it, but to the world the discredit of the final failure does away with any recognition of the previous care. The victor need not explain. The world does not notice the details of the measures employed; but only the good or ill result. You lose nothing if you gain your end. A good end gilds everything, however unsatisfactory the means. Thus at times it is part of the art of life to transgress the rules of the art, if you cannot end well otherwise. lxvii Prefer Callings “en Evidence.” Most things depend on the satisfaction of others. Esteem is to excellence what the zephyr is to flowers, the breath of life. There are some callings which gain universal esteem, while others more important are without credit. The former, pursued before the eyes of all, obtain the universal favour; the others, though they are rarer and more valuable, remain obscure and unperceived, honoured but not applauded. Among princes conquerors

are the most celebrated, and therefore the kings of Aragon earned such applause as warriors, conquerors, and great men. An able man will prefer callings en evidence which all men know of and utilise, and he thus becomes immortalised by universal suffrage. lxviii It is better to help with Intelligence than with Memory. The more as the latter needs only recollection, the former νους. Many persons omit the à propos because it does not occur to them; a friend’s advice on such occasions may enable them to see the advantages. ’Tis one of the greatest gifts of mind to be able to offer what is needed at the moment: for want of that many things fail to be performed. Share the light of your intelligence, when you have any, and ask for it when you have it not, the first cautiously, the last anxiously. Give no more than a hint: this finesse is especially needful when it touches the interest of him whose attention you awaken. You should give but a taste at first, and then pass on to more when that is not sufficient. If he thinks of No, go in search of Yes. Therein lies the cleverness, for most things are not obtained simply because they are not attempted. lxix Do not give way to every common Impulse. He is a great man who never allows himself to be influenced by the impressions of others. Self-reflection is the school of wisdom. To know one’s disposition and to allow for it, even going to the other extreme so as to find the juste milieu between nature and art. Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement. There be some whose humours are so monstrous that they are always under the influence of one or other of them, and put them in place of their real inclinations. They are torn asunder by such disharmony and get involved in contradictory obligations. Such excesses not only destroy firmness of will; all power of judgment gets lost, desire and knowledge pulling in opposite directions. lxx Know how to Refuse. One ought not to give way in everything nor to everybody. To know how to refuse is therefore as important as to know how to consent. This is

especially the case with men of position. All depends on the how. Some men’s No is thought more of than the Yes of others: for a gilded No is more satisfactory than a dry Yes. There are some who always have No on their lips, whereby they make everything distasteful. No always comes first with them, and when sometimes they give way after all, it does them no good on account of the unpleasing herald. Your refusal need not be point-blank: let the disappointment come by degrees. Nor let the refusal be final; that would be to destroy dependence; let some spice of hope remain to soften the rejection. Let politeness compensate and fine words supply the place of deeds. Yes and No are soon said, but give much to think over. lxxi Do not Vacillate. Let not your actions be abnormal either from disposition or affectation. An able man is always the same in his best qualities; he gets the credit of trustworthiness. If he changes, he does so for good reason or good consideration. In matters of conduct change is hateful. There are some who are different every day; their intelligence varies, still more their will, and with this their fortune. Yesterday’s white is to-day’s black: to-day’s No was yesterday’s Yes. They always give the lie to their own credit and destroy their credit with others. lxxii Be Resolute. Bad execution of your designs does less harm than irresolution in forming them. Streams do less harm flowing than when dammed up. There are some men so infirm of purpose that they always require direction from others, and this not on account of any perplexity, for they judge clearly, but from sheer incapacity for action. It needs some skill to find out difficulties, but more to find a way out of them. There are others who are never in straits: their clear judgment and determined character fit them for the highest callings: their intelligence tells them where to insert the thin end of the wedge, their resolution how to drive it home. They soon get through anything: as soon as they have done with one sphere of action, they are ready for another. Affianced to Fortune, they make themselves sure of success.

lxxiii Utilise Slips. That is how smart people get out of difficulties. They extricate themselves from the most intricate labyrinth by some witty application of a bright remark. They get out of a serious contention by an airy nothing or by raising a smile. Most of the great leaders are well grounded in this art. When you have to refuse, it is often the polite way to talk of something else. Sometimes it proves the highest understanding not to understand. lxxiv Do not be Unsociable. The truest wild beasts live in the most populous places. To be inaccessible is the fault of those who distrust themselves, whose honours change their manners. It is no way of earning people’s good-will by being ill-tempered with them. It is a sight to see one of those unsociable monsters who make a point of being proudly impertinent. Their dependants who have the misfortune to be obliged to speak with them, enter as if prepared for a fight with a tiger armed with patience and with fear. To obtain their post these persons must have ingratiated themselves with every one, but having once obtained it they seek to indemnify themselves by disobliging all. It is a condition of their position that they should be accessible to all, yet, from pride or spleen, they are so to none. ’Tis a civil way to punish such men by letting them alone, and depriving them of opportunities of improvement by granting them no opportunity of intercourse. lxxv Choose an Heroic Ideal; but rather to emulate than to imitate. There are exemplars of greatness, living texts of honour. Let every one have before his mind the chief of his calling not so much to follow him as to spur himself on. Alexander wept not on account of Achilles dead and buried, but over himself, because his fame had not yet spread throughout the world. Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another’s fame. The same thing that sharpens envy, nourishes a generous spirit. lxxvi Do not always be Jesting. Wisdom is shown in serious matters, and is more appreciated than mere wit.

He that is always ready for jests is never ready for serious things. They resemble liars in that men never believe either, always expecting a lie in one, a joke in the other. One never knows when you speak with judgment, which is the same as if you had none. A continual jest soon loses all zest. Many get the repute of being witty, but thereby lose the credit of being sensible. Jest has its little hour, seriousness should have all the rest. lxxvii Be all Things to all Men —a discreet Proteus, learned with the learned, saintly with the sainted. It is the great art to gain every one’s suffrages; their goodwill gains general agreement. Notice men’s moods and adapt yourself to each, genial or serious as the case may be. Follow their lead, glossing over the changes as cunningly as possible. This is an indispensable art for dependent persons. But this savoir faire calls for great cleverness. He only will find no difficulty who has a universal genius in his knowledge and universal ingenuity in his wit. lxxviii The Art of undertaking Things. Fools rush in through the door; for folly is always bold. The same simplicity which robs them of all attention to precautions deprives them of all sense of shame at failure. But prudence enters with more deliberation. Its forerunners are caution and care; they advance and discover whether you can also advance without danger. Every rush forward is freed from danger by caution, while fortune some-times helps in such cases. Step cautiously where you suspect depth. Sagacity goes cautiously forward while precaution covers the ground. Nowadays there are unsuspected depths in human intercourse, you must therefore cast the lead at every step. lxxix A Genial Disposition. If with moderation ’tis an accomplishment, not a defect. A grain of gaiety seasons all. The greatest men join in the fun at times, and it makes them liked by all. But they should always on such occasions preserve their dignity, nor go beyond the bounds of decorum. Others, again, get themselves out of difficulty quickest by a joke. For there are things you

must take in fun, though others perhaps mean them in earnest. You show a sense of placability, which acts as a magnet on all hearts. lxxx Take care to get Information. We live by information, not by sight. We exist by faith in others. The ear is the area-gate of truth but the front-door of lies. The truth is generally seen, rarely heard; seldom she comes in elemental purity, especially from afar; there is always some admixture of the moods of those through whom she has passed. The passions tinge her with their colours wherever they touch her, sometimes favourably, sometimes the reverse. She always brings out the disposition, therefore receive her with caution from him that praises, with more caution from him that blames. Pay attention to the intention of the speaker; you should know beforehand on what footing he comes. Let reflection assay falsity and exaggeration. lxxxi Renew your Brilliance. ’Tis the privilege of the Phœnix. Ability is wont to grow old, and with it fame. The staleness of custom weakens admiration, and a mediocrity that’s new often eclipses the highest excellence grown old. Try therefore to be born again in valour, in genius, in fortune, in all. Display startling novelties, rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that your loss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins you applause in the new. lxxxii Drain Nothing to the Dregs, neither Good nor Ill. A sage once reduced all virtue to the golden mean. Push right to the extreme and it becomes wrong: press all the juice from an orange and it becomes bitter. Even in enjoyment never go to extremes. Thought too subtle is dull. If you milk a cow too much you draw blood, not milk. lxxxiii Allow Yourself some venial Fault. Some such carelessness is often the greatest recommendation of talent. For envy exercises ostracism, most envenomed when most polite, It counts it to perfection as a failing that it has no faults; for being perfect in all it

condemns it in all. It becomes an Argus, all eyes for imperfection: ’tis its only consolation. Blame is like the lightning; it hits the highest. Let Homer nod now and then and affect some negligence in valour or in intellect—not in prudence—so as to disarm malevolence, or at least to prevent its bursting with its own venom. You thus leave your cloak on the horns of Envy in order to save your immortal parts. lxxxiv Make use of your Enemies. You should learn to seize things not by the blade, which cuts, but by the handle, which saves you from harm: especially is this the rule with the doings of your enemies. A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends. Their ill-will often levels mountains of difficulties which one would otherwise not face. Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies. Flattery is more dangerous than hatred, because it covers the stains which the other causes to be wiped out. The wise will turn ill-will into a mirror more faithful than that of kindness. and remove or improve the faults referred to. Caution thrives well when rivalry and ill-will are next-door neighbours. lxxxv Do not play Manille. It is a fault of excellence that being so much in use it is liable to abuse. Because all covet it, all are vexed by it. It is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody. People who reach this stage lose by gaining, and at last bore those who desired them before. These Manilles wear away all kinds of excellence: losing the earlier esteem of the few, they obtain discredit among the vulgar. The remedy against this extreme is to moderate your brilliance. Be extraordinary in your excellence, if you like, but be ordinary in your display of it. The more light a torch gives, the more it burns away and the nearer ’tis to going out. Show yourself less and you will be rewarded by being esteemed more. lxxxvi Prevent Scandal. Many heads go to make the mob, and in each of them are eyes for malice to use and a tongue for detraction to wag. If a single ill report spread, it casts a

blemish on your fair fame, and if it clings to you with a nickname, your reputation is in danger. Generally it is some salient defect or ridiculous trait that gives rise to the rumours. At times these are malicious additions of private envy to general distrust. For there are wicked tongues that ruin a great reputation more easily by a witty sneer than by a direct accusation. It is easy to get into bad repute, because it is easy to believe evil of any one: it is not easy to clear yourself. The wise accordingly avoid these mischances, guarding against vulgar scandal with sedulous vigilance. It is far easier to prevent than to rectify. lxxxvii Culture and Elegance. Man is born a barbarian, and only raises himself above the beast by culture. Culture therefore makes the man; the more a man, the higher. Thanks to it, Greece could call the rest of the world barbarians. Ignorance is very raw; nothing contributes so much to culture as knowledge. But even knowledge is coarse if without elegance. Not alone must our intelligence be elegant, but our desires, and above all our conversation. Some men are naturally elegant in internal and external qualities, in their thoughts, in their address, in their dress, which is the rind of the soul, and in their talents, which is its fruit. There are others, on the other hand, so gauche that everything about them, even their very excellences, is tarnished by an intolerable and barbaric want of neatness. lxxxviii Let your Behaviour be Fine and Noble. A great man ought not to be little in his behaviour. He ought never to pry too minutely into things, least of all in unpleasant matters. For though it is important to know all, it is not necessary to know all about all. One ought to act in such cases with the generosity of a gentleman, conduct worthy of a gallant man. To overlook forms a large part of the work of ruling. Most things must be left unnoticed among relatives and friends, and even among enemies. All superfluity is annoying, especially in things that annoy. To keep hovering around the object or your annoyance is a kind of mania. Generally speaking, every man behaves according to his heart and his understanding.

lxxxix Know Yourself —in talents and capacity, in judgment and inclination. You cannot master yourself unless you know yourself. There are mirrors for the face but none for the mind. Let careful thought about yourself serve as a substitute. When the outer image is forgotten, keep the inner one to improve and perfect. Learn the force of your intellect and capacity for affairs, test the force of your courage in order to apply it, and keep your foundations secure and your head clear for everything. xc The Secret of Long Life Lead a good life. Two things bring life speedily to an end: folly and immorality. Some lose their life because they have not the intelligence to keep it, others because they have not the will. Just as virtue is its own reward, so is vice its own punishment. He who lives a fast life runs through life in a double sense. A virtuous life never dies. The firmness of the soul is communicated to the body, and a good life is long not only in intention but also in extension. xci Never set to work at anything if you have any doubts of its Prudence. A suspicion of failure in the mind of the doer is proof positive of it in that of the onlooker, especially if he is a rival. If in the heat of action your judgment feels scruples, it will afterwards in cool reflection condemn it as a piece of folly. Action is dangerous where prudence is in doubt: better leave such things alone. Wisdom does not trust to probabilities; it always marches in the mid-day light of reason. How can an enterprise succeed which the judgment condemns as soon as conceived? And if resolutions passed nem. con. by inner court often turn out unfortunately, what can we expect of those undertaken by a doubting reason and a vacillating judgment? xcii Transcendant Wisdom. I mean in everything. The first and highest rule of all deed and speech, the more necessary to be followed the higher and more numerous our posts, is: an ounce of wisdom is worth more than tons of cleverness. It is the only sure way, though it may not gain so much applause. The reputation of

wisdom is the last triumph of fame. It is enough if you satisfy the wise, for their judgment is the touchstone of true success. xciii Versatility. A man of many excellences equals many men. By imparting his own enjoyment of life to his circle he enriches their life. Variety in excellences is the delight of life. It is a great art to profit by all that is good, and since Nature has made man in his highest development an abstract of herself, so let Art create in him a true microcosm by training his taste and intellect. xciv Keep the extent of your Abilities unknown. The wise man does not allow his knowledge and abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honoured by all. He allows you to know them but not to comprehend them. No one must know the extent of his abilities, lest he be disappointed. No one ever has an opportunity of fathoming him entirely. For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great. xcv Keep Expectation alive. Keep stirring it up. Let much promise more, and great deeds herald greater. Do not rest your whole fortune on a single cast of the die. It requires great skill to moderate your forces so as to keep expectation from being dissipated. xcvi The highest Discretion. It is the throne of reason, the foundation of prudence: by its means success is gained at little cost. It is a gift from above, and should be prayed for as the first and best quality. ’Tis the main piece of the panoply, and so important that its absence makes a man imperfect, whereas with other qualities it is merely a question of more or less. All the actions of life depend on its application; all require its assistance, for everything needs intelligence. Discretion consists in a natural tendency to the most rational course, combined with a liking for the surest.

xcvii Obtain and preserve a Reputation. It is the usufruct of fame. It is expensive to obtain a reputation, for it only attaches to distinguished abilities, which are as rare as mediocrities are common. Once obtained, it is easily preserved. It confers many an obligation, but it does more. When it is owing to elevated powers or lofty spheres of action, it rises to a kind of veneration and yields a sort of majesty. But it is only a well-founded reputation that lasts permanently. xcviii Write your Intentions in Cypher. The passions are the gates of the soul. The most practical knowledge consists in disguising them. He that plays with cards exposed runs a risk of losing the stakes. The reserve of caution should combat the curiosity of inquirers: adopt the policy of the cuttlefish. Do not even let your tastes be known, lest others utilise them either by running counter to them or by flattering them. xcix Reality and Appearance. Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are. Few see inside; many take to the outside. It is not enough to be right, if right seem false and ill. c A Man without Illusions, a wise Christian, a philosophic Courtier. Be all these, not merely seem to be them, still less affect to be them. Philosophy is nowadays discredited, but yet it was always the chiefest concern of the wise. The art of thinking has lost all its former repute. Seneca introduced it at Rome: it went to court for some time, but now it is considered out of place there. And yet the discovery of deceit was always thought the true nourishment of a thoughtful mind, the true delight of a virtuous soul. ci One half of the World laughs at the other, and Fools are they all. Everything is good or everything is bad according to the votes they gain. What one pursues another persecutes. He is an in-sufferable ass that would

regulate everything according to his ideas. Excellences do not depend on a single man’s pleasure. So many men, so many tastes, all different. There is no defect which is not affected by some, nor need we lose heart if things please not some, for others will appreciate them. Nor need their applause turn our head, for there will surely be others to condemn. The real test of praise is the approbation of famous men and of experts in the matter. You should aim to be independent of any one vote, of any one fashion, of any one century. cii Be able to stomach big slices of Luck. In the body of wisdom not the least important organ is a big stomach, for great capacity implies great parts. Big bits of luck do not embarrass one who can digest still bigger ones. What is a surfeit for one may be hunger for another. Many are troubled as it were with weak digestion, owing to their small capacity being neither born nor trained for great employment. Their actions turn sour, and the humours that arise from their undeserved honours turn their head and they incur great risks in high place: they do not find their proper place, for luck finds no proper place in them. A man of talent therefore should show that he has more room for even greater enterprises, and above all avoid showing signs of a little heart. ciii Let each keep up his Dignity. Let each deed of a man in its degree, though he be not a king, be worthy of a prince, and let his action be princely within due limits. Sublime in action, lofty in thought, in all things like a king, at least in merit if not in might. For true kingship lies in spotless rectitude, and he need not envy greatness who can serve as a model of it. Especially should those near the throne aim at true superiority, and prefer to share the true qualities of royalty rather than take parts in its mere ceremonies, yet without affecting its imperfections but sharing in its true dignity. civ Try your hand at Office. It requires varied qualities, and to know which is needed taxes attention and calls for masterly discernment. Some demand courage, others tact. Those

that merely require rectitude are the easiest, the most difficult those requiring cleverness. For the former all that is necessary is character; for the latter all one’s attention and zeal may not suffice. ’Tis a troublesome business to rule men, still more fools or blockheads: double sense is needed with those who have none. It is intolerable when an office engrosses a man with fixed hours and a settled routine. Those are better that leave a man free to follow his own devices, combining variety with importance, for the change refreshes the mind. The most in repute are those that have least or most distant dependence on others; the worst is that which worries us both here and hereafter. cv Don’t be a Bore. The man of one business or of one topic is apt to be heavy. Brevity flatters and does better business; it gains by courtesy what it loses by curtness. Good things, when short, are twice as good. The quintessence of the matter is more effective than a whole farrago of details. It is a well-known truth that talkative folk rarely have much sense whether in dealing with the matter itself or its formal treatment. There are that serve more for stumbling-stones than centrepieces, useless lumber in every one’s way. The wise avoid being bores, especially to the great, who are fully occupied: it is worse to disturb one of them than all the rest. Well said is soon said. cvi Do not parade your Position. To outshine in dignity is more offensive than in personal attractions. To pose as a personage is to be hated: envy is surely enough. The more you seek esteem the less you obtain it, for it depends on the opinion of others. You cannot take it, but must earn and receive it from others. Great positions require an amount of authority sufficient to make them efficient: without it they cannot be adequately filled. Preserve therefore enough dignity to carry on the duties of the office. Do not enforce respect, but try and create it. Those who insist on the dignity of their office, show they have not deserved it, and that it is too much for them. If you wish to be valued, be valued for your talents, not for anything adventitious. Even kings prefer to be honoured for their personal qualifications rather than for their station.

cvii Show no Self-satisfaction. You must neither be discontented with yourself—and that were poorspirited—nor self-satisfied—and that is folly. Self-satisfaction arises mostly from ignorance: it would be a happy ignorance not without its advantages if it did not injure our credit. Because a man cannot achieve the superlative perfections of others, he contents himself with any mediocre talent of his own. Distrust is wise, and even useful, either to evade mishaps or to afford consolation when they come, for a misfortune cannot surprise a man who has already feared it. Even Homer nods at times, and Alexander fell from his lofty state and out of his illusions. Things depend on many circumstances: what constitutes triumph in one set may cause a defeat in another. In the midst of all incorrigible folly remains the same with empty self-satisfaction, blossoming, flowering, and running all to seed. cviii The Path to Greatness is along with Others. Intercourse works well: manners and taste are shared: good sense and even talent grow insensibly. Let the sanguine man then make a comrade of the lymphatic, and so with the other temperaments, so that without any forcing the golden mean is obtained. It is a great art to agree with others. The alternation of contraries beautifies and sustains the world: if it can cause harmony in the physical world, still more can it do so in the moral. Adopt this policy in the choice of friends and defendants; by joining extremes the more effective middle way is found. cix Be not Censorious. There are men of gloomy character who regard everything as faulty, not from any evil motive but because it is their nature to. They condemn all: these for what they have done, those for what they will do. This indicates a nature worse than cruel, vile indeed. They accuse with such exaggeration that they make out of motes beams wherewith to force out the eyes. They are always taskmasters who could turn a paradise into a prison; if passion intervenes they drive matters to the extreme. A noble nature, on the contrary, always knows how to find an excuse for failings, if not in the intention, at least from oversight.

cx Do not wait till you are a Sinking Sun. ’Tis a maxim of the wise to leave things before things leave them. One should be able to snatch a triumph at the end, just as the sun even at its brightest often retires behind a cloud so as not to be seen sinking, and to leave in doubt whether he has sunk or no. Wisely withdraw from the chance of mishaps, lest you have to do so from the reality. Do not wait till they turn you the cold shoulder and carry you to the grave, alive in feeling but dead in esteem. Wise trainers put racers to grass before they arouse derision by falling on the course. A beauty should break her mirror early, lest she do so later with open eyes. cxi Have Friends. ’Tis a second existence. Every friend is good and wise for his friend: among them all everything turns to good. Every one is as others wish him; that they may wish him well, he must win their hearts and so their tongues. There is no magic like a good turn, and the way to gain friendly feelings is to do friendly acts. The most and best of us depend on others; we have to live either among friends or among enemies. Seek some one every day to be a well-wisher if not a friend; by and by after trial some of these will become intimate. cxii Gain Good-will. For thus the first and highest cause foresees and furthers the greatest objects. By gaining their good-will you gain men’s good opinion. Some trust so much to merit that they neglect grace, but wise men know that Service Road without a lift from favour is a long way indeed. Good-will facilitates and supplies everything: it supposes gifts or even supplies them, as courage, zeal, knowledge, or even discretion; whereas defects it will not see because it does not search for them. It arises from some common interest, either material, as disposition, nationality, relationship, fatherland, office; or formal, which is of a higher kind of communion, in capacity, obligation, reputation, or merit. The whole difficulty is to gain good-will; to keep it is easy. It has, however, to be sought for, and, when found, to be utilised.

cxiii In Prosperity prepare for Adversity. It is both wiser and easier to collect winter stores in summer. In prosperity favours are cheap and friends are many. ’Tis well therefore to keep them for more unlucky days, for adversity costs dear and has no helpers. Retain a store of friendly and obliged persons; the day may come when their price will go up. Low minds never have friends; in luck they will not recognise them: in misfortune they will not be recognised by them. cxiv Never Compete. Every competition damages the credit: our rivals seize occasion to obscure us so as to out-shine us. Few wage honourable war. Rivalry discloses faults which courtesy would hide. Many have lived in good repute while they had no rivals. The heat of conflict gives life, or even new life, to dead scandals, and digs up long-buried skeletons. Competition begins with belittling, and seeks aid wherever it can, not only where it ought. And when the weapons of abuse do not effect their purpose, as often or mostly happens, our opponents use them for revenge, and use them at least for beating away the dust of oblivion from anything to our discredit. Men of good-will are always at peace; men of good repute and dignity are men of good-will. cxv Get used to the Failings of your Familiars, as you do to ugly faces. It is indispensable if they depend on us, or we on them. There are wretched characters with whom one cannot live, nor yet without them. Therefore clever folk get used to them, as to ugly faces, so that they are not obliged to do so suddenly under the pressure of necessity. At first they arouse disgust, but gradually they lose this influence, and reflection provides for disgust or puts up with it. cxvi Only act with Honourable Men. You can trust them and they you. Their honour is the best surety of their behaviour even in misunderstandings, for they always act having regard to what they are. Hence ’tis better to have a dispute with honourable people than to have a victory over dishonourable ones. You cannot treat with the ruined, for they have no hostages for rectitude. With them there is no true

friendship, and their agreements are not binding, however stringent they may appear, because they have no feeling of honour. Never have to do with such men, for if honour does not restrain a man, virtue will not, since honour is the throne of rectitude. cxvii Never talk of Yourself. You must either praise yourself, which is vain, or blame yourself, which is little-minded: it ill beseems him that speaks, and ill pleases him that hears. And if you should avoid this in ordinary conversation, how much more in official matters, and above all, in public speaking, where every appearance of unwisdom really is unwise. The same want of tact lies in speaking of a man in his presence, owing to the danger of going to one of two extremes: flattery or censure. cxviii Acquire the Reputation of Courtesy; for it is enough to make you liked. Politeness is the main ingredient of culture,—a kind of witchery that wins the regard of all as surely as discourtesy gains their disfavour and opposition; if this latter springs from pride, it is abominable; if from bad breeding, it is despicable. Better too much courtesy than too little, provided it be not the same for all, which degenerates into injustice. Between opponents it is especially due as a proof of valour. It costs little and helps much: every one is honoured who gives honour. Politeness and honour have this advantage, that they remain with him who displays them to others. cxix Avoid becoming Disliked. There is no occasion to seek dislike: it comes without seeking quickly enough. There are many who hate of their own accord without knowing the why or the how. Their ill-will outruns our readiness to please. Their illnature is more prone to do others harm than their cupidity is eager to gain advantage for themselves. Some manage to be on bad terms with all, because they always either produce or experience vexation of spirit. Once hate has taken root it is, like bad repute, difficult to eradicate. Wise men are feared, the malevolent are abhorred, the arrogant are regarded with disdain,

buffoons with contempt, eccentrics with neglect. Therefore pay respect that you may be respected, and know that to be esteemed you must show esteem. cxx Live Practically. Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not it is wise to affect ignorance. Thought and taste change with the times. Do not be oldfashioned in your ways of thinking, and let your taste be in the modern style. In everything the taste of the many carries the votes; for the time being one must follow it in the hope of leading it to higher things. In the adornment of the body as of the mind adapt yourself to the present, even though the past appear better. But this rule does not apply to kindness, for goodness is for all time. It is neglected nowadays and seems out of date. Truth-speaking, keeping your word, and so too good people, seem to come from the good old times: yet they are liked for all that, but in such a way that even when they all exist they are not in the fashion and are not imitated. What a misfortune for our age that it regards virtue as a stranger and vice as a matter of course! If you are wise, live as you can, if you cannot live as you would. Think more highly of what fate has given you than of what it has denied. cxxi Do not make a Business of what is no Business. As some make gossip out of everything, so others business. They always talk big, take everything in earnest, and turn it into a dispute or a secret. Troublesome things must not be taken too seriously if they can be avoided. It is preposterous to take to heart that which you should throw over your shoulders. Much that would be something has become nothing by being left alone, and what was nothing has become of consequence by being made much of. At the outset things can be easily settled, but not afterwards. Often the remedy causes the disease. ’Tis by no means the least of life’s rules: to let things alone. cxxii Distinction in Speech and Action. By this you gain a position in many places and carry esteem beforehand. It

shows itself in everything, in talk, in look, even in gait. It is a great victory to conquer men’s hearts: it does not arise from any foolish presumption or pompous talk, but in a becoming tone of authority born of superior talent combined with true merit. cxxiii Avoid Affectation. The more merit, the less affectation, which gives a vulgar flavour to all. It is wearisome to others and troublesome to the one affected, for he becomes a martyr to care and tortures himself with attention. The most eminent merits lose most by it, for they appear proud and artificial instead of being the product of nature, and the natural is always more pleasing than the artificial. One always feels sure that the man who affects a virtue has it not. The more pains you take with a thing, the more should you conceal them, so that it may appear to arise spontaneously from your own natural character. Do not, however, in avoiding affectation fall into it by affecting to be unaffected. The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others’ attention to them. He is twice great who has all the perfections in the opinion of all except of himself; he attains applause by two opposite paths. cxxiv Get Yourself missed. Few reach such favour with the many; if with the wise ’tis the height of happiness. When one has finished one’s work, coldness is the general rule. But there are ways of earning this reward of goodwill. The sure way is to excel in your office and talents: add to this agreeable manner and you reach the point where you become necessary to your office, not your office to you. Some do honour to their post, with others ’tis the other way. It is no great gain if a poor successor makes the predecessor seem good, for this does not imply that the one is missed, but that the other is wished away. cxxv Do not be a Black List. It is a sign of having a tarnished name to concern oneself with the ill-fame of others. Some wish to hide their own stains with those of others, or at least wash them away: or they seek consolation therein—’tis the

consolation of fools. They must have bad breath who form the sewers of scandal for the whole town. The more one grubs about in such matters, the more one befouls oneself. There are few without stain somewhere or other, but it is of little known people that the failings are little known. Be careful then to avoid being a registrar of faults. That is to be an abominable thing, a man that lives without a heart. cxxvi Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in not hiding it when committed. You should keep your desires sealed up, still more your defects. All go wrong sometimes, but the wise try to hide the errors, but fools boast of them. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is done; if a man does not live chastely, he must live cautiously. The errors of great men are like the eclipses of the greater lights. Even in friendship it is rare to expose one’s failings to one’s friend. Nay, one should conceal them from oneself if one can. But here one can help with that other great rule of life: learn to forget. cxxvii Grace in Everything. ’Tis the life of talents, the breath of speech, the soul of action, and the ornament of ornament. Perfections are the adornment of our nature, but this is the adornment of perfection itself. It shows itself even in the thoughts. ’Tis most a gift of nature and owes least to education; it even triumphs over training. It is more than ease, approaches the free and easy, gets over embarrassment, and adds the finishing touch to perfection. Without it beauty is lifeless, graciousness ungraceful: it surpasses valour, discretion, prudence, even majesty it-self. ’Tis a short way to dispatch and an easy escape from embarrassment. cxxviii Highmindedness. One of the principal qualifications for a gentleman, for it spurs on to all kinds of nobility. It improves the taste, ennobles the heart, elevates the mind, refines the feelings, and intensifies dignity. It raises him in whom it is found, and at times remedies the bad turns of Fortune, which only raises by

striking. It can find full scope in the will when it cannot be exercised in act. Magnanimity, generosity, and all heroic qualities recognise in it their source. cxxix Never complain. To complain always brings discredit. Better be a model of self-reliance opposed to the passion of others than an object of their compassion. For it opens the way for the hearer to what we are complaining of, and to disclose one insult forms an excuse for another. By complaining of past offences we give occasion for future ones, and in seeking aid or counsel we only obtain indifference or contempt. It is much more politic to praise one man’s favours, so that others may feel obliged to follow suit. To recount the favours we owe the absent is to demand similar ones from the present, and thus we sell our credit with the one to the other. The shrewd will therefore never publish to the world his failures or his defects, but only those marks of consideration which serve to keep friendship alive and enmity silent. cxxx Do and be seen Doing. Things do not pass for what they are but for what they seem. To be of use and to know how to show yourself of use, is to be twice as useful. What is not seen is as if it was not. Even the Right does not receive proper consideration if it does not seem right. The observant are far fewer in number than those who are deceived by appearances. Deceit rules the roast, and things are judged by their jackets, and many things are other than they seem. A good exterior is the best recommendation of the inner perfection. cxxxi Nobility of Feeling. There is a certain distinction of the soul, a highmindedness prompting to gallant acts, that gives an air of grace to the whole character. It is not found often, for it presupposes great magnanimity. Its chief characteristic is to speak well of an enemy, and to act even better to-wards him. It shines brightest when a chance comes of revenge: not alone does it let the occasion pass, but it improves it by using a complete victory in order to display unexpected generosity. ’Tis a fine stroke of policy, nay, the very acme of

statecraft. It makes no pretence to victory, for it pretends to nothing, and while obtaining its deserts it conceals its merits. cxxxii Revise your Judgments. To appeal to an inner Court of Revision makes things safe. Especially when the course of action is not clear, you gain time either to confirm or improve your decision. It affords new grounds for strengthening or corroborating your judgment. And if it is a matter of giving, the gift is the more valued from its being evidently well considered than for being promptly bestowed: long expected is highest prized. And if you have to deny, you gain time to decide how and when to mature the No that it may be made palatable. Besides, after the first heat of desire is passed the repulse of refusal is felt less keenly in cold blood. But especially when men press for a reply is it best to defer it, for as often as not that is only a feint to disarm attention. cxxxiii Better Mad with the rest of the World than Wise alone. So say politicians. If all are so, one is no worse off than the rest, whereas solitary wisdom passes for folly. So important is it to sail with the stream. The greatest wisdom often consists in ignorance, or the pretence of it. One has to live with others, and others are mostly ignorant. “To live entirely alone one must be very like a god or quite like a wild beast,” but I would turn the aphorism by saying: Better be wise with the many than a fool all alone. There be some too who seek to be original by seeking chimeras. cxxxiv Double your Resources. You thereby double your life. One must not depend on one thing or trust to only one resource, however pre-eminent. Everything should be kept double, especially the causes of success, of favour, or of esteem. The moon’s mutability transcends everything and gives a limit to all existence, especially of things dependent on human will, the most brittle of all things. To guard against this inconstancy should be the sage’s care, and for this the chief rule of life is to keep a double store of good and useful qualities. Thus as Nature gives us in duplicate the most important of our limbs and those most exposed to risk, so Art should deal with the qualities on which we

depend for success. cxxxv Do not nourish the Spirit of Contradiction. It only proves you foolish or peevish, and prudence should guard against this strenuously. To find difficulties in everything may prove you clever, but such wrangling writes you down a fool. Such folk make a mimic war out of the most pleasant conversation, and in this way act as enemies towards their associates rather than towards those with whom they do not consort. Grit grates most in delicacies, and so does contradiction in amusement. They are both foolish and cruel who yoke together the wild beast and the tame. cxxxvi Post Yourself in the Centre of Things. So you feel the pulse of affairs. Many lose their way either in the ramifications of useless discussion or in the brushwood of wearisome verbosity without ever realising the real matter at issue. They go over a single point a hundred times, wearying themselves and others, and yet never touch the all-important centre of affairs. This comes from a confusion of mind from which they cannot extricate themselves. They waste time and patience on matters they should leave alone, and cannot spare them afterwards for what they have left alone. cxxxvii The Sage should be Self-sufficing. He that was all in all to himself carried all with him when he carried himself. If a universal friend can represent to us Rome and the rest of the world, let a man be his own universal friend, and then he is in a position to live alone. Whom could such a man want if there is no clearer intellect or finer taste than his own? He would then depend on himself alone, which is the highest happiness and like the Supreme Being. He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much and God in everything. cxxxviii The Art of letting Things alone. The more so the wilder the waves of public or of private life. There are hurricanes in human affairs, tempests of passion, when it is wise to retire to

a harbour and ride at anchor. Remedies often make diseases worse: in such cases one has to leave them to their natural course and the moral suasion of time. It takes a wise doctor to know when not to prescribe, and at times the greater skill consists in not applying remedies. The proper way to still the storms of the vulgar is to hold your hand and let them calm down of themselves. To give way now is to conquer by and by. A fountain gets muddy with but little stirring up, and does not get clear by our meddling with it but by our leaving it alone. The best remedy for disturbances is to let them run their course, for so they quiet down. cxxxix Recognise unlucky Days. They exist: nothing goes well on them; even though the game may be changed the ill-luck remains. Two tries should be enough to tell if one is in luck to-day or not. Everything is in process of change, even the mind, and no one is always wise: chance has something to say, even how to write a good letter. All perfection turns on the time; even beauty has its hours. Even wisdom fails at times by doing too much or too little. To turn out well a thing must be done on its own day. This is why with some everything turns out ill, with others all goes well, even with less trouble. They find everything ready, their wit prompt, their presiding genius favourable, their lucky star in the ascendant. At such times one must seize the occasion and not throw away the slightest chance. But a shrewd person will not decide on the day’s luck by a single piece of good or bad fortune, for the one may be only a lucky chance and the other only a slight annoyance. cxl Find the Good in a Thing at once. ’Tis the advantage of good taste. The bee goes to the honey for her comb, the serpent to the gall for its venom. So with taste: some seek the good, others the ill. There is nothing that has no good in it, especially in books, as giving food for thought. But many have such a scent that amid a thousand excellences they fix upon a single defect, and single it out for blame as if they were scavengers of men’s minds and hearts. So they draw up a balance sheet of defects which does more credit to their bad taste than to their intelligence. They lead a sad life, nourishing themselves on bitters and battening on garbage. They have the luckier taste who midst a thousand

defects seize upon a single beauty they may have hit upon by chance. cxli Do not listen to Yourself. It is no use pleasing yourself if you do not please others, and as a rule general contempt is the punishment for self-satisfaction. The attention you pay to yourself you probably owe to others. To speak and at the same time listen to yourself cannot turn out well. If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others. It is a weakness of the great to talk with a recurrent “as I was saying” and “eh?” which bewilders their hearers. At every sentence they look for applause or flattery, taxing the patience of the wise. So too the pompous speak with an echo, and as their talk can only totter on with the aid of stilts, at every word they need the support of a stupid “bravo!” cxlii Never from Obstinacy take the Wrong Side because your Opponent has anticipated you in taking the Right One. You begin the fight already beaten and must soon take to flight in disgrace. With bad weapons one can never win. It was astute in the opponent to seize the better side first: it would be folly to come lagging after with the worst. Such obstinacy is more dangerous in actions than in words, for action encounters more risk than talk. ’Tis the common failing of the obstinate that they lose the true by contradicting it, and the useful by quarrelling with it. The sage never places himself on the side of passion, but espouses the cause of right, either discovering it first or improving it later. If the enemy is a fool, he will in such a case turn round to follow the opposite and worse way. Thus the only way to drive him from the better course is to take it yourself, for his folly will cause him to desert it, and his obstinacy be punished for so doing. cxliii Never become Paradoxical in order to avoid the Trite. Both extremes damage our reputation. Every undertaking which differs from the reasonable approaches foolishness. The paradox is a cheat: it wins applause at first by its novelty and piquancy, but afterwards it becomes discredited when the deceit is fore-seen and its emptiness becomes

apparent. It is a species of jugglery, and in matters political would be the ruin of states. Those who cannot or dare not reach great deeds on the direct road of excellence go round by way of Paradox, admired by fools but making wise men true prophets. It argues an unbalanced judgment, and if it is not altogether based on the false, it is certainly founded on the uncertain, and risks the weightier matters of life. cxliv Begin with Another’s to end with your Own. ’Tis a politic means to your end. Even in heavenly matters Christian teachers lay stress on this holy cunning. It is a weighty piece of dissimulation, for the foreseen advantages serve as a lure to influence the other’s will. His affair seems to be in train when it is really only leading the way for another’s. One should never advance unless under cover, especially where the ground is dangerous. Likewise with persons who always say No at first, it is useful to ward off this blow, because the difficulty of conceding much more does not occur to them when your version is presented to them. This advice belongs to the rule about second thoughts [xiii], which covers the most subtle manœuvres of life. cxlv Do not show your wounded Finger, for everything will knock up against it; nor complain about it, for malice always aims where weakness can be injured. It is no use to be vexed: being the butt of the talk will only vex you the more. Ill-will searches for wounds to irritate, aims darts to try the temper, and tries a thousand ways to sting to the quick. The wise never own to being hit, or disclose any evil, whether personal or hereditary. For even Fate sometimes likes to wound us where we are most tender. It always mortifies wounded flesh. Never therefore disclose the source of mortification or of joy, if you wish the one to cease, the other to endure. cxlvi Look into the Interior of Things. Things are generally other than they seem, and ignorance that never looks beneath the rind becomes disabused when you show the kernel. Lies always come first, dragging fools along by their irreparable vulgarity. Truth always

lags last, limping along on the arm of Time. The wise therefore reserve for it the other half of that power which the common mother has wisely given in duplicate. Deceit is very superficial, and the superficial therefore easily fall into it. Prudence lives retired within its recesses, visited only by sages and wise men. cxlvii Do not be Inaccessible. None is so perfect that he does not need at times the advice of others. He is an in-corrigible ass who will never listen to any one. Even the most surpassing intellect should find a place for friendly counsel. Sovereignty itself must learn to lean. There are some that are incorrigible simply because they are inaccessible: they fall to ruin because none dares to extricate them. The highest should have the door open for friendship; it may prove the gate of help. A friend must be free to advise, and even to upbraid, without feeling embarrassed. Our satisfaction in him and our trust in his steadfast faith give him that power. One need not pay respect or give credit to every one, but in the innermost of his precaution man has a true mirror of a confidant to whom he owes the correction of his errors, and has to thank for it. cxlviii Have the Art of Conversation. That is where the real personality shows itself. No act in life requires more attention, though it be the commonest thing in life. You must either lose or gain by it. If it needs care to write a letter which is but a deliberate and written conversation, how much more the ordinary kind in which there is occasion for a prompt display of intelligence? Experts feel the pulse of the soul in the tongue, wherefore the sage said, “Speak, that I may know thee.” Some hold that the art of conversation is to be without art—that it should be neat, not gaudy, like the garments. This holds good for talk between friends. But when held with persons to whom one would show respect, it should be more dignified to answer to the dignity of the person addressed. To be appropriate it should adapt itself to the mind and tone of the interlocutor. And do not be a critic of words, or you will be taken for a pedant; nor a taxgatherer of ideas, or men will avoid you, or at least sell their thoughts dear. In conversation discretion is more important than eloquence.

cxlix Know how to put off Ills on Others. To have a shield against ill-will is a great piece of skill in a ruler. It is not the resort of incapacity, as ill-wishers imagine, but is due to the higher policy of having some one to receive the censure of the disaffected and the punishment of universal detestation. Everything cannot turn out well, nor can every one be satisfied: it is well therefore, even at the cost of our pride, to have such a scapegoat, such a target for unlucky undertakings. cl Know to get your Price for Things. Their intrinsic value is not sufficient; for all do not bite at the kernel or look into the interior. Most go with the crowd, and go because they see others go. It is a great stroke of art to bring things into repute; at times by praising them, for praise arouses desire at times by giving them a striking name, which is very useful for putting things at a premium, provided it is done without affectation. Again, it is generally an inducement to profess to supply only connoisseurs, for all think themselves such, and if not, the sense of want arouses the desire. Never call things easy or common: that makes them depreciated rather than made accessible. All rush after the unusual, which is more appetising both for the taste and for the intelligence. cli Think beforehand. To-day for to-morrow, and even for many days hence. The greatest foresight consists in determining beforehand the time of trouble. For the provident there are no mischances and for the careful no narrow escapes. We must not put off thought till we are up to the chin in mire. Mature reflection can get over the most formidable difficulty. The pillow is a silent Sibyl, and it is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards. Many act first and then think afterwards—that is, they think less of consequences than of excuses: others think neither before nor after. The whole of life should be one course of thought how not to miss the right path. Rumination and foresight enable one to determine the line of life. clii Never have a Companion who casts you in the Shade.

The more he does so, the less desirable a companion he is. The more he excels in quality the more in repute: he will always play first fiddle and you second. If you get any consideration, it is only his leavings. The moon shines bright alone among the stars: when the sun rises she becomes either invisible or imperceptible. Never join one that eclipses you, but rather one who sets you in a brighter light. By this means the cunning Fabula in Martial was able to appear beautiful and brilliant, owing to the ugliness and disorder of her companions. But one should as little imperil oneself by an evil companion as pay honour to another at the cost of one’s own credit. When you are on the way to fortune associate with the eminent; when arrived, with the mediocre. cliii Beware of entering where there is a great Gap to be filled. But if you do it be sure to surpass your predecessor; merely to equal him requires twice his worth. As it is a fine stroke to arrange that our successor shall cause us to be wished back, so it is policy to see that our predecessor does not eclipse us. To fill a great gap is difficult, for the past always seems best, and to equal the predecessor is not enough, since he has the right of first possession. You must therefore possess additional claims to oust the other from his hold on public opinion. cliv Do not Believe, or Like, lightly. Maturity of mind is best shown in slow belief. Lying is the usual thing; then let belief be unusual. He that is lightly led away, soon falls into contempt. At the same time there is no necessity to betray your doubts in the good faith of others, for this adds insult to discourtesy, since you make out your informant to be either deceiver or deceived. Nor is this the only evil: want of belief is the mark of the liar, who suffers from two failings: he neither believes nor is believed. Suspension of judgment is prudent in a hearer: the speaker can appeal to his original source of in-formation. There is a similar kind of imprudence in liking too easily, for lies may be told by deeds as well as in words, and this deceit is more dangerous for practical life. clv The Art of getting into a Passion. If possible, oppose vulgar importunity with prudent reflection; it will not be

difficult for a really prudent man. The first step towards getting into a passion is to announce that you are in a passion. By this means you begin the conflict with command over your temper, for one has to regulate one’s passion to the exact point that is necessary and no further. This is the art of arts in falling into and getting out of a rage. You should know how and when best to come to a stop: it is most difficult to halt while running at the double. It is a great proof of wisdom to remain clear-sighted during paroxysms of rage. Every excess of passion is a digression from rational conduct. But by this masterly policy reason will never be transgressed, nor pass the bounds of its own synteresis. To keep control of passion one must hold firm the reins of attention: he who can do so will be the first man “wise on horseback,” and probably the last. clvi Select your Friends. Only after passing the matriculation of experience and the examination of fortune will they be graduates not alone in affection but in discernment. Though this is the most important thing in life, it is the one least cared for. Intelligence brings friends to some, chance to most. Yet a man is judged by his friends, for there was never agreement between wise men and fools. At the same time, to find pleasure in a man’s society is no proof of near friendship: it may come from the pleasantness of his company more than from trust in his capacity. There are some friendships legitimate, others illicit; the latter for pleasure, the former for their fecundity of ideas and motives. Few are the friends of a man’s self, most those of his circumstances. The insight of a true friend is more useful than the goodwill of others: therefore gain them by choice, not by chance. A wise friend wards off worries, a foolish one brings them about. But do not wish them too much luck, or you may lose them. civil Do not make Mistakes about Character. That is the worst and yet easiest error. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods. In dealing with men, more than with other things, it is necessary to look within. To know men is different from knowing things. It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.

clviii Make use of your Friends. This requires all the art of discretion. Some are good afar off, some when near. Many are no good at conversation but excellent as correspondents, for distance removes some failings which are unbearable in close proximity to them. Friends are for use even more than for pleasure, for they have the three qualities of the Good, or, as some say, of Being in general: unity, goodness, and truth. For a friend is all in all. Few are worthy to be good friends, and even these become fewer because men do not know how to pick them out. To keep is more important than to make friends. Select those that will wear well; if they are new at first, it is some consolation they will become old. Absolutely the best are those well salted, though they may require soaking in the testing. There is no desert like living without friends. Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil. ’Tis the sole remedy against misfortune, the very ventilation of the soul. clix Put up with Fools. The wise are always impatient, for he that increases knowledge increase impatience of folly. Much knowledge is difficult to satisfy. The first great rule of life, according to Epictetus, is to put up with things: he makes that the moiety of wisdom. To put up with all the varieties of folly would need much patience. We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend: a useful lesson in self-control. Out of patience comes forth peace, the priceless boon which is the happiness of the world. But let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself. clx Be careful in Speaking. With your rivals from prudence; with others for the sake of appearance. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one. Talk as if you were making your will: the fewer words the less litigation. In trivial matters exercise yourself for the more weighty matters of speech. Profound secrecy has some of the lustre of the divine. He who speaks lightly soon falls or fails. clxi Know your pet Faults.

The most perfect of men has them, and is either wedded to them or has illicit relations with them. They are often faults of intellect, and the greater this is, the greater they are, or at least the more conspicuous. It is not so much that their possessor does not know them: he loves them, which is a double evil: irrational affection for avoidable faults. They are spots on perfection; they displease the onlooker as much as they please the possessor. ’Tis a gallant thing to get clear of them, and so give play to one’s other qualities. For all men hit upon such a failing, and on going over your qualifications they make a long stay at this blot, and blacken it as deeply as possible in order to cast your other talents into the shade. clxii How to triumph over Rivals and Detractors. It is not enough to despise them, though this is often wise: a gallant bearing is the thing. One cannot praise a man too much who speaks well of them who speak ill of him. There is no more heroic vengeance than that of talents and services which at once conquer and torment the envious. Every success is a further twist of the cord round the neck of the ill-affected, and an enemy’s glory is the rival’s hell. The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied wins applause. The immortality of his fame is the measure of the other’s torture: the one lives in endless honour, the other in endless pain. The clarion of Fame announces immortality to the one and death to the other, the slow death of envy long drawn out. clxiii Never, from Sympathy with the Unfortunate, involve Yourself in his Fate. One man’s misfortune is another man’s luck, for one cannot be lucky without many being unlucky. It is a peculiarity of the unfortunate to arouse people’s goodwill who desire to compensate them for the blows of fortune with their useless favour, and it happens that one who was abhorred by all in prosperity is adored by all in adversity. Vengeance on the wing is exchanged for compassion afoot. Yet ’tis to be noticed how fate shuffles the cards. There are men who always consort with the unlucky, and he that yesterday flew high and happy stands to-day miserable at their side. That argues nobility of soul, but not worldly wisdom.

clxiv Throw Straws in the Air, to find how things will be received, especially those whose reception or success is doubtful. One can thus be assured of its turning out well, and an opportunity is afforded for going on in earnest or withdrawing entirely. By trying men’s intentions in this way, the wise man knows on what ground he stands. This is the great rule of foresight in asking, in desiring, and in ruling. clxv Wage War Honourably. You may be obliged to wage war, but not to use poisoned arrows. Every one must needs act as he is, not as others would make him to be. Gallantry in the battle of life wins all men’s praise: one should fight so as to conquer, not alone by force but by the way it is used. A mean victory brings no glory, but rather disgrace. Honour always has the upper hand. An honourable man never uses forbidden weapons, such as using a friendship that’s ended for the purposes of a hatred just begun: a confidence must never be used for a vengeance. The slightest taint of treason tarnishes the good name. In men of honour the smallest trace of meanness repels: the noble and the ignoble should be miles apart. Be able to boast that if gallantry, generosity, and fidelity were lost in the world men would be able to find them again in your own breast. clxvi Distinguish the Man of Words from the Man of Deeds. Discrimination here is as important as in the case of friends, persons, and employments, which have all many varieties. Bad words even without bad deeds are bad enough: good words with bad deeds are worse. One cannot dine off words, which are wind, nor off politeness, which is but polite deceit. To catch birds with a mirror is the ideal snare. It is the vain alone who take their wages in windy words. Words should be the pledges of work, and, like pawn-tickets, have their market price. Trees that bear leaves but not fruit have usually no pith. Know them for what they are, of no use except for shade. clxvii Know how to take your own Part.

In great crises there is no better companion than a bold heart, and if it becomes weak it must be strengthened from the neighbouring parts. Worries die away before a man who asserts himself. One must not surrender to misfortune, or else it would become intolerable. Many men do not help themselves in their troubles, and double their weight by not knowing how to bear them. He that knows himself knows how to strengthen his weakness, and the wise man conquers everything, even the stars in their courses. clxviii Do not indulge in the Eccentricities of Folly. Like vain, presumptuous, egotistical, untrustworthy, capricious, obstinate, fanciful, theatrical, whimsical, inquisitive, paradoxical, sectarian people and all kinds of one-sided persons: they are all monstrosities of impertinence. All deformity of mind is more obnoxious than that of the body, because it contravenes a higher beauty. Yet who can assist such a complete confusion of mind? Where self-control is wanting, there is no room for others’ guidance. Instead of paying attention to other people’s real derision, men of this kind blind themselves with the unfounded assumption of their imaginary applause. clxix Be more careful not to Miss once than to Hit a hundred times. No one looks at the blazing sun; all gaze when he is eclipsed. The common talk does not reckon what goes right but what goes wrong. Evil report carries farther than any applause. Many men are not known to the world till they have left it. All the exploits of a man taken together are not enough to wipe out a single small blemish. Avoid therefore falling into error, seeing that ill-will notices every error and no success. clxx In all Things keep Something in Reserve. ’Tis a sure means of keeping up your importance. A man should not employ all his capacity and power at once and on every occasion. Even in knowledge there should be a rearguard, so that your resources are doubled. One must always have something to resort to when there is fear of a defeat. The reserve is of more importance than the attacking force: for it is distinguished for valour and reputation. Prudence always sets to work with assurance of safety: in this matter the piquant paradox holds good that the

half is more than the whole. clxxi Waste not Influence. The great as friends are for great occasions. One should not make use of great confidence for little things: for that is to waste a favour. The sheet anchor should be reserved for the last extremity. If you use up the great for little ends what remains afterwards? Nothing is more valuable than a protector, and nothing costs more nowadays than a favour. It can make or unmake a whole world. It can even give sense and take it away. As Nature and Fame are favourable to the wise, so Luck is generally envious of them. It is therefore more important to keep the favour of the mighty than goods and chattels. clxxii Never contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything, including shame, he has no further loss to fear. He therefore resorts to all kinds of insolence. One should never expose a valuable reputation to so terrible a risk, lest what has cost years to gain may be lost in a moment, since a single slight may wipe out much sweat. A man of honour and responsibility has a reputation, because he has much to lose. He balances his own and the other’s reputation: he only enters into the contest with the greatest caution, and then goes to work with such circumspection that he gives time to prudence to retire in time and bring his reputation under cover. For even by victory he cannot gain what he has lost by exposing himself to the chances of loss. clxxiii Do not be Glass in Intercourse, still less in Friendship. Some break very easily, and thereby show their want of consistency. They attribute to themselves imaginary offences and to others oppressive intentions. Their feelings are even more sensitive than the eye itself, and must not be touched in jest or in earnest. Motes offend them: they need not wait for beams. Those who consort with them must treat them with the greatest delicacy, have regard to their sensitiveness, and watch their demeanour, since the slightest slight arouses their annoyance. They are mostly very egoistic, slaves of their moods, for the sake of which they cast

everything aside: they are the worshippers of punctilio. On the other hand, the disposition of the true lover is firm and enduring, so that it may be said that the Arrant is half adamant. clxxiv Do not live in a Hurry. To know how to separate things is to know how to enjoy them. Many finish their fortune sooner than their life: they run through pleasures without enjoying them, and would like to go back when they find they have overleaped the mark. Postilions of life, they increase the ordinary pace of life by the hurry of their own calling. They devour more in one day than they can digest in a whole life-time; they live in advance of pleasures, eat up the years beforehand, and by their hurry get through everything too soon. Even in the search for knowledge there should be moderation, lest we learn things better left unknown. We have more days to live through than pleasures. Be slow in enjoyment, quick at work, for men see work ended with pleasure, pleasure ended with regret. clxxv A Solid Man. One who is finds no satisfaction in those that are not. ’Tis a pitiable eminence that is not well founded. Not all are men that seem to be so. Some are sources of deceit; impregnated by chimeras they give birth to impositions. Others are like them so far that they take more pleasure in a lie, because it promises much, than in the truth, because it performs little. But in the end these caprices come to a bad end, for they have no solid foundation. Only Truth can give true reputation: only reality can be of real profit. One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. Unfounded things never reach old age. They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much. clxxvi Have Knowledge, or know those that have Knowledge. Without intelligence, either one’s own or another’s, true life is impossible. But many do not know that they do not know, and many think they know when they know nothing. Failings of the intelligence are incorrigible, since those who do not know, do not know themselves, and cannot therefore seek

what they lack. Many would be wise if they did not think themselves wise. Thus it happens that though the oracles of wisdom are rare, they are rarely used. To seek advice does not lessen greatness or argue incapacity. On the contrary, to ask advice proves you well advised. Take counsel with reason it you do not wish to court defeat. clxxvii Avoid Familiarities in Intercourse. Neither use them nor permit them. He that is familiar, loses any superiority his Influence gives him, and so loses respect. The stars keep their brilliance by not making themselves common. The Divine demands decorum. Every familiarity breeds contempt. In human affairs, the more a man shows, the less he has, for in open communication you communicate the failings that reserve might keep under cover. Familiarity is never desirable; with superiors because it is dangerous, with inferiors because it is unbecoming, least of all with the common herd, who become insolent from sheer folly: they mistake favour shown them for need felt of them. Familiarity trenches on vulgarity. clxxviii Trust your Heart, especially when it has been proved. Never deny it a hearing. It is a kind of house oracle that often foretells the most important. Many have perished because they feared their own heart, but of what use is it to fear it without finding a better remedy? Many are endowed by Nature with a heart so true that it always warns them of misfortune and wards off its effects. It is unwise to seek evils, unless you seek to conquer them. clxxix Reticence is the Seal of Capacity. A breast without a secret is an open letter. Where there is a solid foundation secrets can be kept profound: there are spacious cellars where things of moment may be hid. Reticence springs from self-control, and to control oneself in this is a true triumph. You must pay ransom to each you tell. The security of wisdom consists in temperance in the inner man. The risk that reticence runs lies in the cross-questioning of others, in the use of contradiction to worm out secrets, in the darts of irony: to avoid these the prudent become more reticent than before. What must be done need not be

said, and what must be said need not be done. clxxx Never guide the Enemy to what he has to do. The fool never does what the wise judge wise, because he does not follow up the suitable means. He that is discreet follows still less a plan laid out, or even carried out, by another. One has to discuss matters from both points of view—turn it over on both sides. Judgments vary; let him that has not decided attend rather to what is possible than what is probable. clxxxi The Truth, but not the whole Truth. Nothing demands more caution than the truth: ’tis the lancet of the heart. It requires as much to tell the truth as to conceal it. A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity. The deceit is regarded as treason and the deceiver as a traitor, which is worse. Yet not all truths can be spoken: some for our own sake, others for the sake of others. clxxxii A Grain of Boldness in Everything. ’Tis an important piece of prudence. You must moderate your opinion of others so that you may not think so high of them as to fear them. The imagination should never yield to the heart. Many appear great till you know them personally, and then dealing with them does more to disillusionise than to raise esteem. No one o’ersteps the narrow bounds of humanity: all have their weaknesses either in heart or head. Dignity gives apparent authority, which is rarely accompanied by personal power: for Fortune often redresses the height of office by the inferiority of the holder. The imagination always jumps too soon, and paints things in brighter colours than the real: it thinks things not as they are but as it wishes them to be. Attentive experience disillusionised in the past soon corrects all that. Yet if wisdom should not be timorous, neither should folly be rash. And if selfreliance helps the ignorant, how much more the brave and wise? clxxxiii Do not hold your Views too firmly. Every fool is fully convinced, and every one fully persuaded is a fool: the more erroneous his judgment the more firmly he holds it. Even in cases of obvious certainty, it is fine to yield: our reasons for holding the view cannot

escape notice, our courtesy in yielding must be the more recognised. Our obstinacy loses more than our victory yields: that is not to champion truth but rather rudeness. There be some heads of iron most difficult to turn: add caprice to obstinacy and the sum is a wearisome fool. Steadfastness should be for the will, not for the mind. Yet there are exceptions where one would fail twice, owning oneself wrong both in judgment and in the execution of it. clxxxiv Do not be Ceremonious. Even in a king affectation in this was renowned for its eccentricity. To be punctilious is to be a bore, yet whole nations have this peculiarity. The garb of folly is woven out of such things. Such folk are worshippers of their own dignity, yet show how little it is justified since they fear that the least thing can destroy it. It is right to demand respect, but not to be considered a master of ceremonies. Yet it is true that a man to do without ceremonies must possess supreme qualities. Neither affect nor despise etiquette: he cannot be great who is great at such little things. clxxxv Never stake your Credit on a single Cast; for if it miscarries the damage is irreparable. It may easy happen that a man should fail once, especially at first: circumstances are not always favourable: hence they say, “Every dog has his day.” Always connect your second attempt with your first: whether it succeed or fail, the first will redeem the second. Always have resort to better means and appeal to more resources. Things depend on all sorts of chances. That is why the satisfaction of success is so rare. clxxxvi Recognise Faults, however high placed. Integrity cannot mistake vice even when clothed in brocade or perchance crowned with gold, but will not be able to hide its character for all that. Slavery does not lose its vileness, however it vaunt the nobility of its lord and master. Vices may stand in high place, but are low for all that. Men can see that many a great man has great faults, yet they do not see that he is not great because of them. The example of the great is so specious that it even glosses over viciousness, till it may so affect those who flatter it that they

do not notice that what they gloss over in the great they abominate in the lower classes. clxxxvii Do pleasant Things Yourself, unpleasant Things through Others. By the one course you gain goodwill, by the other you avoid hatred. A great man takes more pleasure in doing a favour than in receiving one: it is the privilege of his generous nature. One cannot easily cause pain to another without suffering pain either from sympathy or from remorse. In high place one can only work by means of rewards and punishment, so grant the first yourself, inflict the other through others. Have some one against whom the weapons of discontent, hatred, and slander may be directed. For the rage of the mob is like that of a dog: missing the cause of its pain it turns to bite the whip itself, and though this is not the real culprit, it has to pay the penalty. clxxxviii Be the Bearer of Praise. This increases our credit for good taste, since it shows that we have learnt elsewhere to know what is excellent, and hence how to prize it in the present company. It gives material for conversation and for imitation, and encourages praiseworthy exertions. We do homage besides in a very delicate way to the excellences before us. Others do the opposite; they accompany their talk with a sneer, and fancy they flatter those present by belittling the absent. This may serve them with superficial people, who do not notice how cunning it is to speak ill of every one to every one else. Many pursue the plan of valuing more highly the mediocrities of the day than the most distinguished exploits of the past. Let the cautious penetrate through these subtleties, and let him not be dismayed by the exaggerations of the one or made over-confident by the flatteries of the other; knowing that both act in the same way by different methods, adapting their talk to the company they are in. clxxxix Utilise Another’s Wants. The greater his wants the greater the turn of the screw. Philosophers say privation is non-existent, statesmen say it is all-embracing, and they are right. Many make ladders to attain their ends out of wants of others. They make use of the opportunity and tantalise the appetite by pointing out the

difficulty of satisfaction. The energy of desire promises more than the inertia of possession. The passion of desire increases with every increase of opposition. It is a subtle point to satisfy the desire and yet preserve the dependence. cxc Find Consolation in all Things. Even the useless may find it in being immortal. No trouble without compensation. Fools are held to be lucky, and the good-luck of the ugly is proverbial. Be worth little and you will live long: it is the cracked glass that never gets broken, but worries one with its durability. It seems that Fortune envies the great, so it equalises things by giving long life to the use-less, a short one to the important. Those who bear the burden come soon to grief, while those who are of no importance live on and on: in one case it appears so, in the other it is so. The unlucky thinks he has been for-gotten by both Death and Fortune. cxci Do not take Payment in Politeness; for it is a kind of fraud. Some do not need the herbs of Thessaly for their magic, for they can enchant fools by the grace of their salute. Theirs is the Bank of Elegance, and they pay with the wind of fine words. To promise everything is to promise nothing: promises are the pitfalls of fools. The true courtesy is performance of duty: the spurious and especially the useless is deceit. It is not respect but rather a means to power. Obeisance is paid not to the man but to his means, and compliments are offered not to the qualities that are recognised but to the advantages that are desired. cxcii Peaceful Life, a long Life. To live, let live. Peacemakers not only live: they rule life. Hear, see, and be silent. A day without dispute brings sleep without dreams. Long life and a pleasant one is life enough for two: that is the fruit of peace. He has all that makes nothing of what is nothing to him. There is no greater perversity than to take everything to heart. There is equal folly in troubling our heart about what does not concern us and in not taking to heart what does. cxciii Watch him that begins with Another’s to end with his own.

Watchfulness is the only guard against cunning. Be intent on his intentions. Many succeed in making others do their own affairs, and unless you possess the key to their motives you may at any moment be forced to take their chestnuts out of the fire to the damage of your own fingers. cxciv Have reasonable Views of Yourself and of your Affairs, especially in the beginning of life. Every one has a high opinion of himself, especially those who have least ground for it. Every one dreams of his good-luck and thinks himself a wonder. Hope gives rise to extravagant promises which experience does not fulfil. Such idle imaginations merely serve as a well-spring of annoyance when disillusion comes with the true reality. The wise man anticipates such errors: he may always hope for the best, but he always expects the worst, so as to receive what comes with equanimity. True, It is wise to aim high so as to hit your mark, but not so high that you miss your mission at the very beginning of life. This correction of the ideas is necessary, because before experience comes expectation is sure to soar too high. The best panacea against folly is prudence. If a man knows the true sphere of his activity and position, the can reconcile his ideals with reality. cxcv Know how to Appreciate. There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled. To know how to make use of every one is useful knowledge. Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good. Fools depreciate all men, not recognising the good and selecting the bad. cxcvi Know your ruling Star. None so helpless as not to have one; if he is unlucky, that is because he does not know it. Some stand high in the favour of princes and potentates without knowing why or wherefore, except that good luck itself has granted them favour on easy terms, merely requiring them to aid it with a little exertion. Others find favour with the wise. One man is better received by one nation than by another, or is more welcome in one city than in another. He finds more luck in one office or position than another, and all this

though his qualifications are equal or even identical. Luck shuffles the cards how and when she will. Let each man know his luck as well as his talents, for on this depends whether he loses or wins. Follow your guiding star and help it without mistaking any other for it, for that would be to miss the North, though its neighbour (the polestar) calls us to it with a voice of thunder. cxcvii Do not carry Fools on your Back. He that does not know a fool when he sees him is one himself: still more he that knows him but will not keep clear of him. They are dangerous company and ruinous confidants. Even though their own caution and others’ care keeps them in bounds for a time, still at length they are sure to do or to say some foolishness which is all the greater for being kept so long in stock. They cannot help another’s credit who have none of their own. They are most unlucky, which is the Nemesis of fools, and they have to pay for one thing or the other. There is only one thing which is not so bad about them, and this is that though they can be of no use to the wise, they can be of much use to them as signposts or as warnings. cxcviii Know how to transplant Yourself. There are nations with whom one must cross their borders to make one’s value felt, especially in great posts. Their native land is always a stepmother to great talents: envy flourishes there on its native soil, and they remember one’s small beginnings rather than the greatness one has reached. A needle is appreciated that comes from one end of the world to the other, and a piece of painted glass might outvie the diamond in value if it comes from afar. Everything foreign is respected, partly because it comes from afar, partly because it is ready made and perfect. We have seen persons once the laughing-stock of their village and now the wonder of the whole world, honoured by their fellow-countrymen and by the foreigners [among whom they dwell]; by the latter because they come from afar, by the former because they are seen from afar. The statue on the altar is never reverenced by him who knew it as a trunk in the garden. cxcix To find a proper Place by Merit, not by Presumption.

The true road to respect is through merit, and if industry accompany merit the path becomes shorter. Integrity alone is not sufficient, push and insistence is degrading, for things arrive by that means so besprinkled with dust that the discredit destroys reputation. The true way is the middle one, half-way between de-serving a place and pushing oneself into it. cc Leave Something to wish for, so as not to be miserable from very happiness. The body must respire and the soul aspire. If one possessed all, all would be disillusion and discontent. Even in knowledge there should be always something left to know in order to arouse curiosity and excite hope. Surfeits of happiness are fatal. In giving assistance it is a piece of policy not to satisfy entirely. If there is nothing left to desire, there is everything to fear, an unhappy state of happiness. When desire dies, fear is born. cci They are all Fools who seem so besides half the rest. Folly arose with the world, and if there be any wisdom it is folly compared with the divine. But the greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are. To be wise it is not enough to seem wise, least of all to oneself. He knows who does not think that he knows, and he does not see who does not see that others see. Though all the world is full of fools, there is none that thinks himself one, or even suspects the fact. ccii Words and Deeds make the Perfect Man. One should speak well and act honourably: the one is an excellence of the head, the other of the heart, and both arise from nobility of soul. Words are the shadows of deeds; the former are feminine, the latter masculine. It is more important to be renowned than to convey renown. Speech is easy, action hard. Actions are the stuff of life, words its frippery. Eminent deeds endure, striking words pass away. Actions are the fruit of thought; if this is wise, they are effective. cciii Know the great Men of your Age. They are not many. There is one Phœnix in the whole world, one great general, one perfect orator, one true philosopher in a century, a really

illustrious king in several. Mediocrities are as numerous as they are worthless: eminent greatness is rare in every respect, since it needs complete perfection, and the higher the species the more difficult is the highest rank in it. Many have claimed the title “Great,” like Cæsar and Alexander, but in vain, for without great deeds the title is a mere breath of air. There have been few Senecas, and fame records but one Apelles. cciv Attempt easy Tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy. In the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed. For a thing to remain undone nothing more is needed than to think it done. On the other hand, patient industry overcomes impossibilities. Great undertakings are not to be brooded over, lest their difficulty when seen causes despair. ccv Know how to play the Card of Contempt. It is a shrewd way of getting things you want, by affecting to depreciate them: generally they are not to be had when sought for, but fall into one’s hands when one is not looking for them. As all mundane things are but shadows of the things eternal, they share with shadows this quality, that they flee from him who follows them and follow him that flees from them. Contempt is besides the most subtle form of revenge. It is a fixed rule with the wise never to defend themselves with the pen. For such defence always leaves a stain, and does more to glorify one’s opponent than to punish his offence. It is a trick of the worthless to stand forth as opponents of great men, so as to win notoriety by a roundabout way, which they would never do by the straight road of merit. There are many we would not have heard of if their eminent opponents had not taken notice of them. There is no revenge like oblivion, through which they are buried in the dust of their unworthiness. Audacious persons hope to make themselves eternally famous by setting fire to one of the wonders of the world and of the ages. The art of reproving scandal is to take no notice of it, to combat it damages our own case; even if credited it causes discredit, and is a source of satisfaction to our opponent, for this shadow of a stain dulls the lustre of our fame even if it cannot altogether deaden it.

ccvi Know that there are vulgar Natures everywhere, even in Corinth itself, even in the highest families. Every one may try the experiment within his own gates. But there is also such a thing as vulgar opposition to vulgarity, which is worse. This special kind shares all the qualities of the common kind, just as bits of a broken glass: but this kind is still more pernicious; it speaks folly, blames impertinently, is a disciple of ignorance, a patron of folly, and past master of scandal; you need not notice what it says, still less what it thinks. It is important to know vulgarity in order to avoid it, whether it is subjective or objective. For all folly is vulgarity, and the vulgar consist of fools. ccvii Be Moderate. One has to consider the chance of a mischance. The impulses of the passions cause prudence to slip, and there is the risk of ruin. A moment of wrath or of pleasure carries you on farther than many hours of calm, and often a short diversion may put a whole life to shame. The cunning of others uses such moments of temptation to search the recesses of the mind: they use such thumbscrews as are wont to test the best caution. Moderation serves as a counterplot, especially in sudden emergencies. Much thought is needed to prevent a passion taking the bit in the teeth, and he is doubly wise who is wise on horseback. He who knows the danger may with care pursue his journey. Light as a word may appear to him who throws it out, it may import much to him that hears it and ponders on it. ccviii Do not die of the Fools’ Disease. The wise generally die after they have lost their reason: fools before they have found it. To die of the fools’ disease is to die of too much thought. Some die because they think and feel too much: others live because they do not think and feel: these are fools because they do not die of sorrow, the others because they do. A fool is he that dies of too much knowledge: thus some die because they are too knowing, others because they are not knowing enough. Yet though many die like fools, few die fools. ccix Keep Yourself free from common Follies.

This is a special stroke of policy. They are of special power because they are general, so that many who would not be led away by any individual folly cannot escape the universal failing. Among these are to be counted the common prejudice that any one is satisfied with his fortune, however great, or unsatisfied with his intellect, however poor it is. Or again, that each, being discontented with his own lot, envies that of others; or further, that persons of to-day praise the things of yesterday, and those here the things there. Everything past seems best and everything distant is more valued. He is as great a fool that laughs at all as he that weeps at all. ccx Know how to play the Card of Truth. ’Tis dangerous, yet a good man cannot avoid speaking it. But great skill is needed here: the most expert doctors of the soul pay great attention to the means of sweetening the pill of truth. For when it deals with the destroying of illusion it is the quintessence of bitterness. A pleasant manner has here an opportunity for a display of skill: with the same truth it can flatter one and fell another to the ground. Matters of to-day should be treated as if they were long past. For those who can understand a word is sufficient, and if it does not suffice, it is a case for silence. Princes must not be cured with bitter draughts; it is therefore desirable in their case to gild the pill of disillusion. ccxi In Heaven all is bliss: in Hell all misery. On earth, between the two, both one thing and the other. We stand between the two extremes, and therefore share both. Fate varies: all is not good luck nor all mischance. This world is merely zero: by itself it is of no value, but with Heaven in Front of it, it means much. Indifference at its ups and downs is prudent, nor is there any novelty for the wise. Our life gets as complicated as a comedy as it goes on, but the complications get gradually resolved: see that the curtain comes down on a good dénoûment. ccxii Keep to Yourself the final Touches of your Art. This is a maxim of the great masters who pride themselves on this subtlety in teaching their pupils: one must always remain superior, remain master. One must teach an art artfully. The source of knowledge need not be

pointed out no more than that of giving. By this means a man preserves the respect and the dependence of others. In amusing and teaching you must keep to the rule: keep up expectation and advance in perfection. To keep a reserve is a great rule for life and for success, especially for those in high place. ccxiii Know how to Contradict. A chief means of finding things out—to embarrass others without being embarrassed. The true thumbscrew, it brings the passions into play. Tepid incredulity acts as an emetic on secrets. It is the key to a locked-up breast, and with great subtlety makes a double trial of both mind and will. A sly depreciation of another’s mysterious word scents out the profoundest secrets; some sweet bait brings them into the mouth till they fall from the tongue and are caught in the net of astute deceit. By reserving your attention the other becomes less attentive, and lets his thoughts appear while otherwise his heart were inscrutable. An affected doubt is the subtlest picklock that curiosity can use to find out what it wants to know. Also in learning it is a subtle plan of the pupil to contradict the master, who thereupon takes pains to explain the truth more thoroughly and with more force, so that a moderate contradiction produces complete instruction. ccxiv Do not turn one Blunder into two. It is quite usual to commit four others in order to remedy one, or to excuse one piece of impertinence by still another. Folly is either related to, or identical with the family of Lies, for in both cases it needs many to support one. The worst of a bad case is having to fight it, and worse than the ill itself is not being able to conceal it. The annuity of one failing serves to support many others. A wise man may make one slip but never two, and that only in running, not while standing still. ccxv Watch him that acts on Second Thoughts. It is a device of business men to put the opponent off his guard before attacking him, and thus to conquer by being defeated: they dissemble their desire so as to attain it. They put themselves second so as to come out first in the final spurt. This method rarely fails if it is not noticed. Let therefore

the attention never sleep when the intention is so wide awake. And if the other puts himself second so to hide his plan, put yourself first to discover it. Prudence can discern the artifices which such a man uses, and notices the pretexts he puts forward to gain his ends. He aims at one thing to get another: then he turns round smartly and fires straight at his target. It is well to know what you grant him, and at times it is desirable to give him to understand that you understand. ccxvi Be Expressive. This depends not only on the clearness but also on the vivacity of your thoughts. Some have an easy conception but a hard labour, for without clearness the children of the mind, thoughts and judgments, cannot be brought into the world. Many have a capacity like that of vessels with a large mouth and a small vent. Others again say more than they think. Resolution for the will, expression for the thought: two great gifts. Plausible minds are applauded: yet confused ones are often venerated just because they are not understood, and at times obscurity is convenient if you wish to avoid vulgarity; yet how shall the audience understand one that connects no definite idea with what he says? ccxvii Neither Love nor Hate, for ever Trust the friends of to-day as if they will be enemies to-morrow, and that of the worst kind. As this happens in reality, let it happen in your precaution. Do not put weapons in the hand for deserters from friendship to wage war with. On the other hand, leave the door of reconciliation open for enemies, and if it is also the gate of generosity so much the more safe. The vengeance of long ago is at times the torment of to-day, and the joy over the ill we have done is turned to grief. ccxviii Never act from Obstinacy but from Knowledge. All obstinacy is an excrescence of the mind, a grandchild of passion which never did anything right. There are persons who make a war out of everything, real banditti of intercourse. All that they undertake must end in victory; they do not know how to get on in peace. Such men are fatal when they rule and govern, for they make government rebellion, and enemies out

of those whom they ought to regard as children. They try to effect everything with strategy and treat it as the fruit of their skill. But when others have recognised their perverse humour all revolt against them and learn to overturn their chimerical plans, and they succeed in nothing but only heap up a mass of troubles, since everything serves to increase their disappointment. They have a head turned and a heart spoilt. Nothing can be done with such monsters except to flee from them, even to the Antipodes, where the savagery is easier to bear than their loathsome nature. ccxix Do not pass for a Hypocrite, though such men are indispensable nowadays. Be considered rather prudent than astute. Sincerity in behaviour pleases all, though not all can show it in their own affairs. Sincerity should not degenerate into simplicity nor sagacity into cunning. Be rather respected as wise than feared as sly. The open-hearted are loved but deceived. The great art consists in disclosing what is thought to be deceit. In the golden age simplicity flourished, in these days of iron cunning. The reputation of being a man who knows what he has to do is honourable and inspires confidence, but to be considered a hypocrite is deceptive and arouses mistrust. ccxx If you cannot clothe Yourself in Lionskin use Foxpelt. To follow the times is to lead them. He that gets what he wants never loses his reputation. Cleverness when force will not do. One way or another, the king’s highway of valour or the bypath of cunning. Skill has effected more than force, and astuteness has conquered courage more often than the other way. When you cannot get a thing then is the time to despise it. ccxxi Do not seize Occasions to embarrass Yourself or Others. There are some men stumbling-blocks of good manners either for themselves or for others: they are always on the point of some stupidity. You meet with them easily and part from them uneasily. A hundred annoyances a day is nothing to them. Their humour always strokes the wrong way since they contradict all and every. They put on the judgment cap wrong side foremost and thus condemn all. Yet the greatest test of others’ patience and prudence are just those who do no good and speak ill

of all. There are many monsters in the wide realm of Indecorum. ccxxii Reserve is proof of Prudence. The tongue is a wild beast; once let loose it is difficult to chain. It is the pulse of the soul by which wise men judge of its health: by this pulse a careful observer feels every movement of the heart. The worst is that he who should be most reserved is the least. The sage saves himself from worries and embarrassments, and shows his mastery over himself. He goes his way carefully, a Janus for impartiality, an Argus for watchfulness. Truly Momus had better placed the eyes in the hand than the window in the breast. ccxxiii Be not Eccentric, neither from affectation nor carelessness. Many have some remarkable and individual quality leading to eccentric actions. These are more defects than excellent differences. And just as some are known for some special ugliness, so these for something repellant in their outward behaviour. Such eccentricities simply serve as trademarks through their atrocious singularity: they cause either derision or ill-will. ccxxiv Never take Things against the Grain, no matter how they come. Everything has a smooth and a seamy side, and the best weapon wounds if taken by the blade, while the enemy’s spear may be our best protection if taken by the staff. Many things cause pain which would cause pleasure if you regarded their advantages. There is a favourable and an unfavourable side to everything, the cleverness consists in finding out the favourable. The same thing looks quite different in another light; look at it therefore on its best side and do not exchange good for evil. Thus it haps that many find joy, many grief, in everything. This remark is a great protection against the frowns of fortune, and a weighty rule of life for all times and all conditions. ccxxv Know your chief Fault. There lives none that has not in himself a counterbalance to his most conspicuous merit: if this be nourished by desire it may grow to be a tyrant.

Commence war against it, summoning prudence as your ally, and the first thing to do is the public manifesto, for an evil once known is soon conquered, especially when the one afflicted regards it in the same light as the onlookers. To be master of oneself one should know oneself. If the chief imperfection surrender, the rest will come to an end. ccxxvi Take care to be Obliging. Most talk and act, not as they are, but as they are obliged. To persuade people of ill is easy for any, since the ill is easily credited even when at times it is incredible. The best we have depends on the opinion of others. Some are satisfied if they have right on their side, but that is not enough, for it must be assisted by energy. To oblige persons often costs little and helps much. With words you may purchase deeds. In this great house of the world there is no chamber so hid that it may not be wanted one day in the year, and then you would miss it however little is its worth. Every one speaks of a subject according to his feelings. ccxxvii Do not be the Slave of First Impressions. Some marry the very first account they hear: all others must live with them as concubines. But as a lie has swift legs, the truth with them can find no lodging. We should neither satisfy our will with the first object nor our mind with the first proposition: for that were superficial. Many are like new casks who keep the scent of the first liquor they hold, be it good or bad. If this superficiality becomes known, it becomes fatal, for it then gives opportunity for cunning mischief; the ill-minded hasten to colour the mind of the credulous. Always therefore leave room for a second hearing. Alexander always kept one ear for the other side. Wait for the second or even third edition of news. To be the slave of your impressions argues want of capacity, and is not far from being the slave of your passions. ccxxviii Do not be a Scandal-monger. Still less pass for one, for that means to be considered a slanderer. Do not be witty at the cost of others: it is easy but hateful. All men have their revenge on such an one by speaking ill of him, and as they are many and he but one, he is more likely to be overcome than they convinced. Evil should never be

our pleasure, and therefore never our theme. The backbiter is always hated, and if now and then one of the great consorts with him, it is less from pleasure in his sneers than from esteem for his insight. He that speaks ill will always hear worse. ccxxix Plan out your Life wisely, not as chance will have it, but with prudence and foresight. Without amusements it is wearisome, like a long journey where there are no inns: manifold knowledge gives manifold pleasure. The first day’s journey of a noble life should be passed in conversing with the dead: we live to know and to know our-selves: hence true books make us truly men. The second day should be spent with the living, seeing and noticing all the good in the world. Everything is not to be found in a single country. The Universal Father has divided His gifts, and at times has given the richest dower to the ugliest. The third day is entirely for oneself. The last felicity is to be a philosopher. ccxxx Open your Eyes betimes. Not all that see have their eyes open, nor do all those see that look. To come up to things too late is more worry than help. Some just begin to see when there is nothing more to see: they pull their houses about their ears before they come to themselves. It is difficult to give sense to those who have no power of will, still more difficult to give energy to those who have no sense. Those who surround them play with them a game of blind man’s buff, making them the butts of others, and be-cause they are hard of hearing, they do not open their eyes to see. There are often those who encourage such insensibility on which their very existence depends. Unhappy steed whose rider is blind: it will never grow sleek. ccxxxi Never let Things be seen half-finished. They can only be enjoyed when complete. All beginnings are misshapen, and this deformity sticks in the imagination. The recollection of having seen a thing imperfect disturbs our enjoyment of it when completed. To swallow something great at one gulp may disturb the judgment of the separate parts, but satisfies the taste. Till a thing is everything, it is nothing, and while it is

in process of being it is still nothing. To see the tastiest dishes prepared arouses rather disgust than appetite. Let each great master take care not to let his work be seen in its embryonic stages: they might take this lesson from Dame Nature, who never brings the child to the light till it is fit to be seen. ccxxxii Have a Touch of the Trader. Life should not be all thought: there should be action as well. Very wise folk are generally easily deceived, for while they know out-of-the-way things they do not know the ordinary things of life, which are much more needful. The observation of higher things leaves them no time for things close at hand. Since they know not the very first thing they should know, and what everybody knows so well, they are either considered or thought ignorant by the superficial multitude. Let therefore the prudent take care to have something of the trader about him—enough to prevent him being deceived and so laughed at. Be a man adapted to the daily round, which if not the highest is the most necessary thing in life. Of what use is knowledge if it is not practical, and to know how to live is nowadays the true knowledge. ccxxxiii Let not the proffered Morsel be distasteful; otherwise it gives more discomfort than pleasure. Some displease when attempting to oblige, because they take no account of varieties of taste. What is flattery to one is an offence to another, and in attempting to be useful one may become insulting. It often costs more to displease a man than it would have cost to please him: you thereby lose both gift and thanks because you have lost the compass which steers for pleasure. He who knows not another’s taste, knows not how to please him. Thus it haps that many insult where they mean to praise, and get soundly punished, and rightly so. Others desire to charm by their conversation, and only succeed in boring by their loquacity. ccxxxiv Never trust your Honour to another, unless you have his in Pledge. Arrange that silence is a mutual advantage; disclosure a danger to both. Where honour is at stake you must act with a partner, so that each must be

careful of the other’s honour for the sake of his own. Never entrust your honour to another; but if you have, let caution surpass prudence. Let the danger be in common and the risk mutual, so that your partner cannot turn king’s evidence. ccxxxv Know how to Ask. With some nothing easier: with others nothing so difficult. For there are men who cannot refuse: with them no skill is required. But with others their first word at all times is No; with them great art is required, and with all the propitious moment. Surprise them when in a pleasant mood, when a repast of body or soul has just left them refreshed, if only their shrewdness has not anticipated the cunning of the applicant. The days of joy are the days of favour, for joy overflows from the inner man into the outward creation. It is no use applying when another has been refused, since the objection to a No has just been overcome. Nor is it a good time after sorrow. To oblige a person beforehand is a sure way, unless he is mean. ccxxxvi Make an Obligation beforehand of what would have to be a Reward afterwards. This is a stroke of subtle policy; to grant favours before they are deserved is a proof of being obliging. Favours thus granted beforehand have two great advantages: the promptness of the gift obliges the recipient the more strongly; and the same gift which would afterwards be merely a reward is beforehand an obligation. This is a subtle means of transforming obligations, since that which would have forced the superior to reward is changed into one that obliges the one obliged to satisfy the obligation. But this is only suitable for men who have the feeling of obligation, since with men of lower stamp the honorarium paid beforehand acts rather as a bit than as a spur. ccxxxvii Never share the Secrets of your Superiors. You may think you will share pears, but you will only share parings. Many have been ruined by being confidants: they are like sops of bread used as forks, they run the same risk of being eaten up afterwards. It is no favour in a prince to share a secret: it is only a relief. Many break the mirror that

reminds them of their ugliness. We do not like seeing those who have seen us as we are: nor is he seen in a favourable light who has seen us in an unfavourable one. None ought to be too much beholden to us, least of all one of the great, unless it be for benefits done him rather than for such favours received from him. Especially dangerous are secrets entrusted to friends. He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other’s slave. With a prince this is an intolerable position which cannot last. He will desire to recover his lost liberty, and to gain it will overturn everything, including right and reason. Accordingly neither tell secrets nor listen to them. ccxxxviii Know what is wanting in Yourself. Many would have been great personages if they had not had something wanting without which they could not rise to the height of perfection. It is remarkable with some that they could be much better if they could be better in something. They do not perhaps take themselves seriously enough to do justice to their great abilities; some are wanting in geniality of disposition, a quality which their entourage soon find the want of, especially if they are in high office. Some are without organising ability, others lack moderation. In all such cases a careful man may make of habit a second nature. ccxxxix Do not be Captious. It is much more important to be sensible. To know more than is necessary blunts your weapons, for fine points generally bend or break. Commonsense truth is the surest. It is well to know but not to niggle. Lengthy comment leads to disputes. It is much better to have sound sense, which does not wander from the matter in hand. ccxl Make use of Folly. The wisest play this card at times, and there are times when the greatest wisdom lies in seeming not to be wise. You need not be unwise, but merely affect unwisdom. To be wise with fools and foolish with the wise were of little use. Speak to each in his own language. He is no fool who affects folly, but he is who suffers from it. Ingenuous folly rather than the pretended is the true foolishness, since cleverness has arrived at such a

pitch. To be well liked one must dress in the skin of the simplest of animals. ccxli Put up with Raillery, but do not practise it. The first is a form of courtesy, the second may lead to embarrassment. To snarl at play has something of the beast and seems to have more. Audacious raillery is delightful: to stand it proves power. To show oneself annoyed causes the other to be annoyed. Best leave it alone; the surest way not to put on the cap that might fit. The most serious matters have arisen out of jests. Nothing requires more tact and attention. Before you begin to joke know how far the subject of your joke is able to bear it. ccxlii Push Advantages. Some put all their strength in the commencement and never carry a thing to a conclusion. They invent but never execute. These be paltering spirits. They obtain no fame, for they sustain no game to the end. Everything stops at a single stop. This arises in some from impatience, which is the failing of the Spaniard, as patience is the virtue of the Belgian. The latter bring things to an end, the former come to an end with things. They sweat away till the obstacle is surmounted, but content themselves with surmounting it: they do not know how to push the victory home. They prove that they can but will not: but this proves always that they cannot, or have no stability. If the undertaking is good, why not finish it? If it is bad, why undertake it? Strike down your quarry, if you are wise; be not content to flush it. ccxliii Do not be too much of a Dove. Alternate the cunning of the serpent with the candour of the dove. Nothing is easier than to deceive an honest man. He believes in much who lies in naught; who does no deceit, has much confidence. To be deceived is not always due to stupidity, it may arise from sheer goodness. There are two sets of men who can guard themselves from injury: those who have experienced it at their own cost, and those who have observed it at the cost of others. Prudence should use as much suspicion as subtlety uses snares, and none need be so good as to enable others to do him ill. Combine in yourself the dove and the serpent, not as a monster but as a prodigy.

ccxliv Create a feeling of Obligation. Some transform favours received into favours bestowed, and seem, or let it be thought, that they are doing a favour when receiving one. There are some so astute that they get honour by asking, and buy their own advantage with applause from others. They manage matters so cleverly that they seem to be doing others a service when receiving one from them. They transpose the order of obligation with extraordinary skill, or at least render it doubtful who has obliged whom. They buy the best by praising it, and make a flattering honour out of the pleasure they express. They oblige by their courtesy, and thus make men beholden for what they themselves should be beholden. In this way they conjugate “to oblige” in the active instead of in the passive voice, thereby proving themselves better politicians than grammarians. This is a subtle piece of finesse; a still greater is to perceive it, and to retaliate on such fools’ bargains by paying in their own coin, and so coming by your own again. ccxlv Original and out-of-the-way Views are signs of superior ability. We do not think much of a man who never contradicts us that is no sign he loves us, but rather that he loves himself. Do not be deceived by flattery, and thereby have to pay for it: rather condemn it. Besides you may take credit for being censured by some, especially if they are those of whom the good speak ill. On the contrary, it should disturb us if our affairs please every one, for that is a sign that they are of little worth. Perfection is for the few. ccxlvi Never offer Satisfaction unless it is demanded. And if they do demand it, it is a kind of crime to give more than necessary. To excuse oneself before there is occasion is to accuse oneself. To draw blood in full health gives the hint to ill-will. An excuse unexpected arouses suspicion from its slumbers. Nor need a shrewd person show himself aware of another’s suspicion, which is equivalent to seeking out offence. He had best disarm distrust by the integrity of his conduct. ccxlvii Know a little more, live a little less.

Some say the opposite. To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which even he has who has nothing else. It is equally unfortunate to waste your precious life in mechanical tasks or in a profusion of important work. Do not heap up occupation and thereby envy: otherwise you complicate life and exhaust your mind. Some wish to apply the same principle to knowledge, but unless one knows one does not truly live. ccxlviii Do not go with the last Speaker. There are persons who go by the latest edition, and thereby go to irrational extremes. Their feelings and desires are of wax: the last comer stamps them with his seal and obliterates all previous impressions. These never gain anything, for they lose everything so soon. Every one dyes them with his own colour. They are of no use as confidants; they remain children their whole life. Owing to this instability of feeling and volition, they halt along cripples in will and thought, and totter from one side of the road to the other. ccxlix Never begin Life with what should end it. Many take their amusement at the beginning, putting off anxiety to the end; but the essential should come first and accessories afterwards if there is room. Others wish to triumph before they have fought. Others again begin with learning things of little consequence and leave studies that would bring them fame and gain to the end of life. Another is just about to make his fortune when he disappears from the scene. Method is essential for knowledge and for life. ccl When to change the Conversation. When they talk scandal. With some all goes contrariwise: their No is Yes, and their Yes No. If they speak ill of a thing it is the highest praise. For what they want for them-selves they depreciate to others. To praise a thing is not always to speak well of it, for some, to avoid praising what’s good, praise what’s bad, and nothing is good for him for whom nothing is bad. ccli Use human Means as if there were no divine ones, and divine as if there

were no human ones. A masterly rule: it needs no comment. cclii Neither belong entirely to Yourself nor entirely to Others. Both are mean forms of tyranny. To desire to be all for oneself is the same as desiring to have all for oneself. Such persons will not yield a jot or lose a tittle of their comfort. They are rarely beholden, lean on their own luck, and their crutch generally breaks. It is convenient at times to belong to others, that others may belong to us. And he that holds public office is no more nor less than a public slave, or let a man give up both berth and burthen, as the old woman said to Hadrian. On the other hand, others are all for others, which is folly, that always flies to extremes, in this case in a most unfortunate manner. No day, no hour, is their own, but they have so much too much of others that they may be called the slaves of all. This applies even to knowledge, where a man may know everything for others and nothing for himself. A shrewd man knows that others when they seek him do not seek him, but their advantage in him and by him. ccliii Do not Explain overmuch. Most men do not esteem what they understand, and venerate what they do not see. To be valued things should cost dear: what is not understood becomes overrated. You have to appear wiser and more prudent than he requires with whom you deal, if you desire to give him a high opinion of you: yet in this there should be moderation and no excess. And though with sensible people common sense holds its own, with most men a little elaboration is necessary. Give them no time for blame: occupy them with understanding your drift. Many praise a thing without being able to tell why, if asked. The reason is that they venerate the unknown as a mystery, and praise it because they hear it praised. ccliv Never despise an Evil, however small, for they never come alone: they are linked together like pieces of good fortune. Fortune and misfortune generally go to find their fellows. Hence all avoid the unlucky and associate with the fortunate. Even the doves with all

their innocence resort to the whitest walls. Everything fails with the unfortunate—himself, his words, and his luck. Do not wake Misfortune when she sleeps. One slip is a little thing: yet some fatal loss may follow it till you do not know where it will end. For just as no happiness is perfect, so no ill-luck is complete. Patience serves with what comes from above; prudence with that from below. cclv Do Good a little at a time, but often. One should never give beyond the possibility of return. Who gives much does not give but sells. Nor drain gratitude to the dregs, for when the recipient sees all return is impossible he breaks off correspondence. With many persons it is not necessary to do more than overburden them with favours to lose them altogether: they cannot repay you, and so they retire, preferring rather to be enemies than perpetual debtors. The idol never wishes to see before him the sculptor who shaped him, nor does the benefited wish to see his benefactor always before his eyes. There is a great subtlety in giving what costs little yet is much desired, so that it is esteemed the more. cclvi Go armed against Discourtesy, and against perfidy, presumption, and all other kinds of folly. There is much of it in the world, and prudence lies in avoiding a meeting with it. Arm yourself each day before the mirror of attention with the weapons of defence. Thus you will beat down the attacks of folly. Be prepared for the occasion, and do not expose your reputation to vulgar contingencies. Armed with prudence, a man cannot be disarmed by impertinence. The road of human intercourse is difficult, for it is full of ruts which may jolt our credit. Best to take a byway, taking Ulysses as a model of shrewdness. Feigned misunderstanding is of great value in such matters. Aided by politeness it helps us over all, and is often the only way out of difficulties. cclvii Never let Matters come to a Rupture, for our reputation always comes injured out of the encounter. Every one may be of importance as an enemy if not as a friend. Few can do us good, almost any can do us harm. In Jove’s bosom itself even his eagle never

nestles securely from the day he has quarrelled with a beetle. Hidden foes use the paw of the declared enemy to stir up the fire, and meanwhile they lie in ambush for such an occasion. Friends provoked become the bitterest of enemies. They cover their own failings with the faults of others. Every one speaks as things seem to him, and things seem as he wishes them to appear. All blame us at the beginning for want of foresight, at the end for lack of patience, at all times for imprudence. If, however, a breach is inevitable, let it be rather excused as a slackening of friendship than by an outburst of wrath: here is a good application of the saying about a good retreat. cclviii Find out some one to share your Troubles. You will never be all alone, even in dangers, nor bear all the burden of hate. Some think by their high position to carry off the whole glory of success, and have to bear the whole humiliation of defeat. In this way they have none to excuse them, none to share the blame. Neither fate nor the mob are so bold against two. Hence the wise physician, if he has failed to cure, looks out for some one who, under the name of a consultation, may help him carry out, the corpse. Share weight and woe, for misfortune falls with double force on him that stands alone. cclix Anticipate Injuries and turn them into Favours. It is wiser to avoid than to revenge them. It is an uncommon piece of shrewdness to change a rival into a confidant, or transform into guards of honour those who were aiming attacks at us. It helps much to know how to oblige, for he leaves no time for injuries that fills it up with gratitude. That is true savoir faire to turn anxieties into pleasures. Try and make a confidential relation out of ill-will itself. cclx We belong to none and none to us, entirely. Neither relationship nor friendship nor the most intimate connection is sufficient to effect this. To give one’s whole confidence is quite different from giving one’s regard. The closest intimacy has its exceptions, without which the laws of friendship would be broken. The friend always keeps one secret to himself, and even the son always hides something from his father.

Some things are kept from one that are revealed to another and vice versâ. In this way one reveals all and conceals all, by making a distinction among the persons with whom we are connected. cclxi Do not follow up a Folly. Many make an obligation out of a blunder, and because they have entered the wrong path think it proves their strength of character to go on in it. Within they regret their error, while outwardly they excuse it. At the beginning of their mistake they were regarded as inattentive, in the end as fools. Neither an unconsidered promise nor a mistaken resolution are really binding. Yet some continue in their folly and prefer to be constant fools. cclxii Be able to Forget. It is more a matter of luck than of skill. The things we remember best are those better for-gotten. Memory is not only unruly, leaving us in the lurch when most needed, but stupid as well, putting its nose into places where it is not wanted. In painful things it is active, but neglectful in recalling the pleasurable. Very often the only remedy for the ill is to forget it, and all we forget is the remedy. Nevertheless one should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno. The happy are an exception who enjoy innocently their simple happiness. cclxiii Many things of Taste one should not possess oneself. One enjoys them better if another’s than if one’s own. The owner has the good of them the first day, for all the rest of the time they are for others. You take a double enjoyment in other men’s property, being without fear of spoiling it and with the pleasure of novelty. Everything tastes better for having been without it: even water from another’s well tastes like nectar. Possession not alone hinders enjoyment: it increases annoyance whether you lend or keep. You gain nothing except keeping things for or from others, and by this means gain more enemies than friends. cclxiv Have no careless Days. Fate loves to play tricks, and will heap up chances to catch us unawares. Our intelligence, prudence, and courage, even our beauty, must always be

ready for trial. For their day of careless trust will be that of their discredit. Care always fails just when it was most wanted. It is thoughtlessness that trips us up into destruction. Accordingly it is a piece of military strategy to put perfection to its trial when unprepared. The days of parade are known and are allowed to pass by, but the day is chosen when least expected so as to put valour to the severest test. cclxv Set those under you difficult Tasks. Many have proved themselves able at once when they had to deal with a difficulty, just as fear of drowning makes a swimmer of a man, in this way many have discovered their own courage, knowledge, or tact, which but for the opportunity would have been for ever buried beneath their want of enterprise. Dangers are the occasions to create a name for oneself; and if a noble mind sees honour at stake, he will do the work of thousands. Queen Isabella the Catholic knew well this rule of life, as well as all the others, and to a shrewd favour of this kind from her the Great Captain won his fame, and many others earned an undying name. By this great art she made great men. cclxvi Do not become Bad from sheer Goodness. That is, by never getting into a temper. Such men without feeling are scarcely to be considered men. It does not always arise from laziness, but from sheer inability. To feel strongly on occasion is something personal: birds soon mock at the mawkin. It is a sign of good taste to combine bitter and sweet. All sweets is diet for children and fools. It is very bad to sink into such insensibility out of very goodness. cclxvii Silken Words, sugared Manners. Arrows pierce the body, insults the soul. Sweet pastry perfumes the breath. It is a great art in life to know how to sell wind. Most things are paid for in words, and by them you can remove impossibilities. Thus we deal in air, and a royal breath can produce courage and power. Always have your mouth full of sugar to sweeten your words, so that even your ill-wishers enjoy them. To please one must be peaceful.

cclxviii The Wise do at once what the Fool does at last. Both do the same thing; the only difference lies in the time they do it: the one at the right time, the other at the wrong. Who starts out with his mind topsyturvy will so continue till the end. He catches by the foot what he ought to knock on the head, he turns right into left, and in all his acts is but a child. There is only one way to get him in the right way, and that is to force him to do what he might have done of his own accord. The wise man, on the other hand, sees at once what must be done sooner or later, so he does it willingly and gains honour thereby. cclxix Make use of the Novelty of your Position; for men are valued while they are new. Novelty pleases all because it is uncommon, taste is refreshed, and a brand new mediocrity is thought more of than accustomed excellence. Ability wears away by use and becomes old. However, know that the glory of novelty is short-lived: after four days respect is gone. Accordingly, learn to utilise the first fruits of appreciation, and seize during the rapid passage of applause all that can be put to use. For once the heat of novelty over, the passion cools and the appreciation of novelty is exchanged for satiety at the customary: believe that all has its season, which soon passes. cclxx Do not condemn alone that which pleases all. There must be something good in a thing that pleases so many; even if it cannot be explained it is certainly enjoyed. Singularity is always hated, and, when in the wrong, laughed at. You simply destroy respect for your taste rather than do harm to the object of your blame, and are left alone, you and your bad taste. If you cannot find the good in a thing, hide your incapacity and do not damn it straightway. As a general rule bad taste springs from want of knowledge. What all say, is so, or will be so. cclxxi In every Occupation if you know little stick to the safest. If you are not respected as subtle, you will be regarded as sure. On the other hand, a man well trained can plunge in and act as he pleases. To know little and yet seek danger is nothing else than to seek ruin. In such a case take

stand on the right hand, for what is done cannot be undone. Let little knowledge keep to the king’s highway, and in every case, knowing or unknowing, security is shrewder than singularity. cclxxii Sell Things by the Tariff of Courtesy. You oblige people most that way. The bid of an interested buyer will never equal the return gift of an honourable recipient of a favour. Courtesy does not really make presents, but really lays men under obligation, and generosity is the great obligation. To a right-minded man nothing costs more dear that what is given him: you sell it him twice and for two prices: one for the value, one for the politeness. At the same time it is true that with vulgar souls generosity is gibberish, for they do not understand the language of good breeding. cclxxiii Comprehend their Dispositions with whom you deal, so as to know their intentions. Cause known, effect known, beforehand in the disposition and after in the motive. The melancholy man always foresees misfortunes, the backbiter scandals; having no conception of the good, evil offers itself to them. A man moved by passion always speaks of things differently from what they are; it is his passion speaks, not his reason. Thus each speaks as his feeling or his humour prompts him, and all far from the truth. Learn how to decipher faces and spell out the soul in the features. If a man laughs always, set him down as foolish; if never, as false. Beware of the gossip: he is either a babbler or a spy. Expect little good from the misshapen: they generally take revenge on Nature, and do little honour to her, as she has done little to them. Beauty and folly generally go hand in hand. cclxxiv Be Attractive. It is the magic of subtle courtesy. Use the magnet of your pleasant qualities more to obtain goodwill than good deeds, but apply it to all. Merit is not enough unless supported by grace, which is the sole thing that gives general acceptance, and the most practical means of rule over others. To be in vogue is a matter of luck, yet it can be encouraged by skill, for art can best take root on a soil favoured by nature. There goodwill grows and develops

into universal favour. cclxxv Join in the Game as far as Decency permits. Do not always pose and be a bore: this is a maxim for gallant bearing. You may yield a touch of dignity to gain the general good-will: you may now and then go where most go, yet not beyond the bounds of decorum. He who makes a fool of himself in public will not be regarded as discreet in private life. One may lose more on a day of pleasure than has been gained during a whole life of labour. Still you must not always keep away: to be singular is to condemn all others. Still less act the prude—leave that to its appropriate sex: even religious prudery is ridiculous. Nothing so becomes a man as to be a man: a woman may affect a manly bearing as an excellence, but not vice versâ. cclxxvi Know how to renew your Character, with the help both of Nature and of Art, Every seven years the disposition changes, they say. Let it be a change for the better and for the nobler in your taste. After the first seven comes reason, with each succeeding lustre let a new excellence be added. Observe this change so as to aid it, and hope also for betterment in others. Hence it arises that many change their behaviour when they change their position or their occupation. At times the change is not noticed till it reaches the height of maturity. At twenty Man is a Peacock, at thirty a Lion, at forty a Camel, at fifty a Serpent, at sixty a Dog, at seventy an Ape, at eighty nothing at all. cclxxvii Display yourself. ’Tis the illumination of talents: for each there comes an appropriate moment; use it, for not every day comes a triumph. There are some dashing men who make much show with a little, a whole exhibition with much. If ability to display them is joined to versatile gifts, they are regarded as miraculous. There are whole nations given to display: the Spanish people take the highest rank in this. Light was the first thing to cause Creation to shine forth. Display fills up much, supplies much, and gives a second existence to things, especially when combined with real excellence. Heaven that grants perfection, provides also the means of display; for one without

the other were abortive. Skill is however needed for display. Even excellence depends on circumstances and is not always opportune. Ostentation is out of place when it is out of time. More than any other quality it should be free of any affectation. This is its rock of offence, for it then borders on vanity and so on contempt: it must be moderate to avoid being vulgar, and any excess is despised by the wise. At times it consists in a sort of mute eloquence, a careless display of excellence, for a wise concealment is often the most effective boast, since the very withdrawal from view piques curiosity to the highest. ’Tis a fine subtlety too not to display one’s excellence all at one time, but to grant stolen glances at it, more and more as time goes on. Each exploit should be the pledge of a greater, and applause at the first should only die away in expectation of its sequel. cclxxviii Avoid Notoriety in all Things. Even excellences become defects if they become notorious. Notoriety arises from singularity, which is always blamed: he that is singular is left severely alone. Even beauty is discredited by coxcombry, which offends by the very notice it attracts. Still more does this apply to discreditable singularities. Yet among the wicked there are some that seek to be known for seeking novelties in vice so as to attain to the fame of infamy. Even in matters of the intellect want of moderation may degenerate into loquacity. cclxxix Do not contradict the Contradicter. You have to distinguish whether the contra-diction comes from cunning or from vulgarity. It is not always obstinacy, but may be artfulness. Notice this: for in the first case one may get into difficulties, in the other into danger. Caution is never more needed than against spies. There is no such countercheck to the picklock of the mind as to leave the key of caution in the lock. cclxxx Be Trustworthy. Honourable dealing is at an end: trusts are denied: few keep their word: the greater the service, the poorer the reward: that is the way with all the world nowadays. There are whole nations inclined to false dealing: with some

treachery has always to be feared, with others breach of promise, with others deceit. Yet this bad behaviour of others should rather be a warning to us than an example. The fear is that the sight of such unworthy behaviour should override our integrity. But a man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are. cclxxxi Find Favour with Men of Sense. The tepid Yes of a remarkable man is worth more than all the applause of the vulgar: you cannot make a meal off the smoke of chaff. The wise speak with understanding and their praise gives permanent satisfaction. The sage Antigonus reduced the theatre of his fame to Zeus alone, and Plato called Aristotle his whole school. Some strive to fill their stomach albeit only with the breath of the mob. Even monarchs have need of authors, and fear their pens more than ugly women the painter’s pencil. cclxxxii Make use of Absence to make yourself more esteemed or valued. If the accustomed presence diminishes fame, absence augments it. One that is regarded as a lion in his absence may be laughed at when present as the ridiculous result of the parturition of the mountains. Talents get soiled by use, for it is easier to see the exterior rind than the kernel of greatness it encloses. Imagination reaches farther than sight, and disillusion, which ordinarily comes through the ears, also goes out through the ears. He keeps his fame that keeps himself in the centre of public opinion. Even the Phœnix uses its retirement for new adornment and turns absence into desire. cclxxxiii Have the Gift of Discovery. It is a proof of the highest genius, yet when was genius without a touch of madness? If discovery be a gift of genius, choice of means is a mark of sound sense. Discovery comes by special grace and very seldom. For many can follow up a thing when found, but to find it first is the gift of the few, and those the first in excellence and in age. Novelty flatters, and if successful gives the possessor double credit. In matters of judgment novelties are dangerous because leading to paradox, in matters of genius they deserve all praise. Yet both equally deserve applause if successful.

cclxxxiv Do not be Importunate, and so you will not be slighted. Respect yourself if you would have others respect you. Be sooner sparing than lavish with your presence. You will thus become desired and so well received. Never come unasked and only go when sent for. If you undertake a thing of your own accord you get all the blame if it fails, none of the thanks if it succeeds. The importunate is always the butt of blame; and because he thrusts himself in without shame he is thrust out with it. cclxxxv Never die of another’s Ill-luck. Notice those who stick in the mud, and observe how they call others to their aid so as to console themselves with a companion in misfortune. They seek some one to help them to bear misfortune, and often those who turned the cold shoulder on them in prosperity give them now a helping hand. There is great caution needed in helping the drowning without danger to oneself. cclxxxvi Do not become responsible for all or for every one, otherwise you become a slave and the slave of all. Some are born more fortunate than others: they are born to do good as others to receive it. Freedom is more precious than any gifts for which you may be tempted to give it up. Lay less stress on making many dependent on you than on keeping yourself independent of any. The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good. Above all do not regard responsibility as a favour, for generally it is another’s plan to make one dependent on him. cclxxxvii Never act in a Passion. If you do, all is lost. You cannot act for yourself if you are not yourself, and passion always drives out reason. In such cases inter-pose a prudent gobetween who can only be prudent if he keeps cool. That is why lookers-on see most of the game, because they keep cool. As soon as you notice that you are losing your temper beat a wise retreat. For no sooner is the blood up than it is spilt, and in a few moments occasion may be given for many days’ repentance for oneself and complaints of the other party. cclxxxviii Live for the Moment.

Our acts and thoughts and all must be determined by circumstances. Will when you may, for time and tide wait for no man. Do not live by certain fixed rules, except those that relate to the cardinal virtues. Nor let your will subscribe fixed conditions, for you may have to drink the water to-morrow which you cast away to-day. There be some so absurdly paradoxical that they expect all the circumstances of an action should bend to their eccentric whims and not vice versâ. The wise man knows that the very polestar of prudence lies in steering by the wind. cclxxxix Nothing depreciates a Man more than to show he is a Man like other Men. The day he is seen to be very human he ceases to be thought divine. Frivolity is the exact opposite of reputation. And as the re-served are held to be more than men, so the frivolous are held to be less. No failing causes such failure of respect. For frivolity is the exact opposite of solid seriousness. A man of levity cannot be a man of weight even when he is old, and age should oblige him to be prudent. Although this blemish is so common it is none the less despised. ccxc ’Tis a piece of good Fortune to combine Men’s Love and Respect. Generally one dare not be liked if one would be respected. Love is more sensitive than hate. Love and honour do not go well together. So that one should aim neither to be much feared nor much loved. Love introduces confidence, and the further this advances, the more respect recedes. Prefer to be loved with respect rather than with passion, for that is a love suitable for many. ccxci Know how to Test. The care of the wise must guard against the snare of the wicked. Great judgment is needed to test that of another. It is more important to know the characteristics and properties of persons than those of vegetables and minerals. It is indeed one of the shrewdest things in life. You can tell metals by their ring and men by their voice. Words are proof of integrity, deeds still more. Here one requires extraordinary care, deep observation, subtle discernment, and judicious decision.

ccxcii Let your personal Qualities surpass those of your Office. Let it not be the other way about. How-ever high the post, the person should be higher. An extensive capacity expands and dilates more and more as his office becomes higher. On the other hand, the narrow-minded will easily lose heart and come to grief with diminished responsibilities and reputation. The great Augustus thought more of being a great man than a great prince. Here a lofty mind finds fit place, and well-grounded confidence finds its opportunity. ccxciii Maturity. It is shown in the costume, still more in the customs. Material weight is the sign of a precious metal; moral, of a precious man. Maturity gives finish to his capacity and arouses respect. A composed bearing in a man forms a façade to his soul. It does not consist in the insensibility of fools, as frivolity would have it, but in a calm tone of authority. With men of this kind sentences are orations and acts are deeds. Maturity finishes a man off, for each is so far a complete man according as he possesses maturity. On ceasing to be a child a man begins to gain seriousness and authority. ccxciv Be moderate in your Views. Every one holds views according to his interest, and imagines he has abundant grounds for them. For with most men judgment has to give way to inclination. It may occur that two may meet with exactly opposite views and yet each thinks to have reason on his side, yet reason is always true to itself and never has two faces. In such a difficulty a prudent man will go to work with care, for his decision of his opponent’s view may cast doubt on his own. Place yourself in such a case in the other man’s place and then investigate the reasons for his opinion. You will not then condemn him or justify yourself in such a confusing way. ccxcv Do not affect what you have not effected. Many claim exploits without the slightest claim. With the greatest coolness they make a mystery of all. Chameleons of applause they afford others a surfeit of laughter. Vanity is always objectionable, here it is despicable.

These ants of honour go crawling about filching scraps of exploits. The greater your exploits the less you need affect them: content yourself with doing, leave the talking to others. Give away your deeds but do not sell them. And do not hire venal pens to write down praises in the mud, to the derision of the knowing ones. Aspire rather to be a hero than merely to appear one. ccxcvi Noble Qualities. Noble qualities make noblemen: a single one of them is worth more than a multitude of mediocre ones. There was once a man who made all his belongings, even his household utensils, as great as possible. How much more ought a great man see that the qualities of his soul are as great as possible. In God all is eternal and infinite, so in a hero everything should be great and majestic, so that all his deeds, nay, all his words, should he pervaded by a transcendent majesty. ccxcvii Always act as if your Acts were seen. He must see all round who sees that men see him or will see him. He knows that walls have ears and that ill deeds rebound back. Even when alone he acts as if the eyes of the whole world were upon him. For as he knows that sooner or later all will be known, so he considers those to be present as witnesses who must afterwards hear of the deed. He that wished the whole world might always see him did not mind that his neighbours could see him over their walls. ccxcviii Three Things go to a Prodigy. They are the choicest gifts of Heaven’s prodigality—a fertile genius, a profound intellect, a pleasant and refined taste. To think well is good, to think right is better: ’tis the understanding of the good. It will not do for the judgment to reside in the backbone: it would be of more trouble than use. To think aright is the fruit of a reasonable nature. At twenty the will rules; at thirty the intellect; at forty the judgment. There are minds that shine in the dark like the eyes of the lynx, and are most clear where there is most darkness. Others are more adapted for the occasion: they always hit on that which suits the emergency: such a quality produces much and good; a sort

of fecund felicity. In the meantime good taste seasons the whole of life. ccxcix Leave off Hungry. One ought to remove even the bowl of nectar from the lips. Demand is the measure of value. Even with regard to bodily thirst it is a mark of good taste to slake but not to quench it. Little and good is twice good. The second time comes a great falling off. Surfeit of pleasure was ever dangerous and brings down the ill-will of the Highest Powers. The only way to please is to revive the appetite by the hunger that is left. If you must excite desire, better do it by the impatience of want than by the repletion of enjoyment. Happiness earned gives double joy. ccc In one word, be a Saint. So is all said at once. Virtue is the link of all perfections, the centre of all the felicities. She it is that makes a man prudent, discreet, sagacious, cautious, wise, courageous, thoughtful, trustworthy, happy, honoured, truthful, and a universal Hero. Three HHH’s make a man happy—Health, Holiness, and a Headpiece. Virtue is the sun of the microcosm, and has for hemisphere a good conscience. She is so beautiful that she finds favour with both God and man. Nothing is lovable but virtue, nothing detestable but vice. Virtue alone is serious, all else is but jest. A man’s capacity and greatness are to be measured by his virtue and not by his fortune. She alone is all-sufficient. She makes men lovable in life, memorable after death.

18 Charles V.

NOTES the Spanish original, generally from the Barcelona edition of 1734, though I have occasionally referred to the Madrid edition of 1653, and at times used the text of the Biblioteca de autores epañoles. This may have occasioned some inconsistencies, especially with regard to accentuation. Schop. refers to Schopenhauer’s translation; I have used Grisebach’s edition in the Reclam series. M.G.D. is prefixed to quotations from Sir M. Grant Duff’s renderings in Fort. Rev., March 1877; Eng. I. and II. refer to the English translations of 1694 and Savage’s of 1902 respectively. ORIG. REFERS TO

Maxim ii

character and intellect—Orig. “Genio y ingenio”; Schop. “Herz und Kopf”; Eng. I. “Wit and a Genius.” The first section of El Discreto has the same title. two poles—Orig. “los dos exes del lucimiento de prendas”; M.G.D. “The two axes of the brilliance of our accomplishments.”

iii

when you explain; cf. ccliii. the Divine way; cf. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,” Prov. xxv. 2.

v

Not he that adorns—Orig. “No hace el númen el que lo dora sino el que lo adora”; Schop. “Den Götzen macht nicht der Vergolder sondern der Anbeter.” golden platter—Orig. “del oro al lodo”; lit. from the gold to the mire.

vi

A Man; from El Discreto.

ix

strata—so Schop. “Schichten”; Orig. “venas donde pasa.”

xiii

Second Thoughts—Orig. “intencion segunda.” The expression and idea is derived from scholastic logic. Terms of second intention, i.e. logical technical terms, are doubly abstract, being abstractions of terms of first intention. warfare against malice—Orig. “milicia … contra la malicia.”

xiv

accident—Orig. “circumstancia”; again a scholastic term referring to the modes of real being. joy in life; cf. Emerson: “Beautiful behaviour is the finest of the fine arts.”

xv

make use of the wise—“Make friends of the wise,” said the Seven Sages, ap. Stobaeus, Flor. iii. 80. great thing to know—Orig. “Ay mucho que saber y es poco el vivir”; Schop. takes it as a variant of Hippocrates’ maxim, “Art is long,” etc., and renders “Das Wissen ist lang, das Leben kurz.” See, however, ccxlvii.

xvi

Knowledge without sense—“Ciencia sin seso locura doble”; cf. Span. prov. “Ciencia es Locura si buen seso no la cura.”

xvii

impulse—Orig. “intencion,” a reference to xiii, where see Note.

xviii

Application and Ability. Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 38, adds zeal or energy.

xix

Arouse, etc.; from El Heroe, § 16.

xx

The sage has one advantage. A favourite maxim of Schopenhauer, quoted by him in his Wille in d. Natur, 1836, p. 34, and written on his own copy of Die Welt als Wille, obviously applying it to himself. (See Grisebach, Edita and Inedita, p. 104.)

xxiii

soon finds out—Orig. “para luego y aun repara.”

xxv

Know how, etc.—Orig. “Been entendedor”; from El Discreto. Eng. I. “A good Pryer”; Eng. II. “A good Understanding.” The reference is to the Span. prov. “A buen entendedor pocas palabras,” Don Quixote, ii. cc. 37, 60. Sly uses the later half in Taming of Shrew Induction, “Therefore pocas palabras, let the world slide, sessa!”

xxvii

giants are real dwarfs; cf. Bacon’s apophthegm, “Nature did never put her jewels in garrets.” try the brawn. A slight embellishment. Orig. “para exercitar antes los braços que los ingenios.”

xxviii

great and wise—Phocion; ap. Plutarch, Reg. et Imp. Apophthegm. Phocion, 4. chameleons of popularity; cf. ccxcv

xxix

Many praise it; cf. “Probitas laudatur et alget,” Juv. Sat. i. 74.

xxxi

Select the Lucky. Quoted by Addison in Spectator, No. 293. The Rothschilds are said to act on this principle in their business relations. Never open; cf. ccliv. win the odd trick—Orig. merely “hallan con la ventura.”

xxxii

Those make friends; cf. xl, cxi.

xxxiii

One is not obliged; cf. cclx.

xxxv

All fools; cf. Stevenson, Kidnapped, c. xiv. as: “I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of them; and I believe they both got paid in the end; but the fools first.”

xxxvi

favours the bold; cf. Span. prov. “Al hombre osado la Fortuna lada la mano.”

xxxvii

Keep a Store of Sarcasms, etc.—Eng. I. and II. “To guess at the meaning of the little Hints that are given us by the bye, and

to know how to make the best of them.” xl

From El Heroe, § 12.

xliii

From El Discreto, “Hombre juizio.”

xliv

for mystery and for use—Orig. “por lo culto y por lo ventojoso.”

xlvii

One affair—Orig. has a play upon “empeño” and “despeño,” which I have tried to reproduce.

xlviii

no use boring—Orig. “No ay en estos donde parar ó todo para.”

xlix

From El Discreto, c. xviii.

li

Know how, etc.; from El Discreto, c. ix.

liii

From El Discreto, c. xx. Festina lente—Orig. “Correr á espacio.” This is not given in Dielitz’ elaborate work on Wahl-und Denksprüche, Gorlitz, 1884, so I suspect it was Gracián’s version of Augustus’ motto, σπευδε βραχέως, generally translated Festina lente.

lv

Wait; from El Discreto, c. iii, mainly from the end. It is called an Allegoria.

lv

He spake. Charles V. according to El Discreto, I.e. Schop. attributes the saying to Philip II.

lvi

Have Presence of Mind; from El Discreto, c. xiv. natures of Antiperistasis. The energy aroused by opposition. Johnson gives example from Cowley (M.G.D.) It occurs also in Bacon (Colours, vii.) and Browne (Rel. Med. II. x.) Macaulay also uses it in his essay on Bacon (Oxford Diet.) work best in an emergency. So Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 48, who speaks of men “formed to shine under exceptional

circumstances,” as in the Indian Mutiny. lvii

Quickly done; cf. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, “Good and quickly seldom meet.”

lix

Finish off well; from El Discreto, c. xi. think of the finish; cf. lxvi. Few in life—Orig. “Que son raros los deseados.” warmly as—Orig. “lo que se muesta de cumplida con los que vienen de descortes con los que van.” M.G.D. “Seldom does fortune conduct a parting guest to the threshold.”

lx

by the helm of state. So Schop. “Solche Leute verdienen am Staatsruder zu stehen, sei es zur Lenkung oder zum Rath”; Orig. “Merecen estos la asistencia al gobernarle ó para exercicio ó para consejo.”

lxi

To Excel; from El Heroe, p. vi.

lxii

Use good Instruments. Chap. iii. of Sir H. Taylor’s The Statesman is entitled “A Statesman’s most pregnant Function lies in the Choice and Use of Instruments.”

lxii

all the blame; cf. Sir A. Helps’s Essays in Intervals of Business (Macmillan, 1890), p. 44: “You have to choose persons for whose faults you are to be punished, to whom you are to be the whipping boy.”

lxiii

To be the First; from El Heroe, primor vii.

lxv

Elevated Taste; from El Heroe, primor v. Eng. II. “The Fine Taste,” and so quoted by Addison, Spectator, No. 40n.

lxvi

See that Things end well; cf. lix. A good end gilds. Here the Jesuit speaks.

lxvii

Prefer Callings “en Evidence”; from El Heroe, primor viii. kings of Aragon. Gracián was himself an Aragonese.

lxix

Do not give way, etc.; from El Discreto, c. xiii.

lxxi

Do not Vacillate; from El Discreto, c. vi.

lxxvi

Do not always be Jesting; from El Discreto, c. ix. A continual jest—Orig. “No ay mayor desayre que el continuo donayre.”

lxxvii

Be all Things to all Men. A touch of Gracián’s training as Jesuit. universal genius—Orig. “varon universal de ingenio en noticias y de genio en gustos” cf. ii.

lxxix

Join in the fun; cf. cclxxv.

lxxxi

mediocrity that’s new; cf. cclxix. Change the scene; cf. cxcviii.

lxxxii

A sage—Aristotle.

lxxxiii

leave your cloak—an image taken from the bull-fight, when the matador allows the bull to rush at his cloak held sideways. Gracián uses the same image in El Criticon, i. 3.

lxxxiv

blade which cuts; cf. ccxxiv.

lxxxv

Manille. Schop. suggests that this is the Manillio of Hombre, the second best trump (cf. Pope, Rape of Lock, iii. 51). But there is a game mentioned by Littré s.v., which is obviously the one referred to by Gracián. In this the nine of diamonds, called Manille, can be made any value the player wishes. Manille thus means a combination of a jack of all Trades and a universal drudge.

lxxxvii

Culture and Elegance; from El Discreto, c. xvii.

xc

The Secret; cf. Fuller, “He lives long who lives well.”

have not the will. So, it is said, negroes and savages die in circumstances where Europeans keep alive simply because they have “the will to live, the competence to be.” xcii

an ounce of wisdom—Orig. “Mas vale un grano de cordura que arrobas de sutileza.”

xciv

Keep the extent, etc.; from El Heroe, i.

xcv

single cast; cf. clxxxv.

xcvi

The highest Discretion—Orig. “la gran sinderesis.”

xcviii

Write your Intentions in Cypher; from El Heroe, ii. adopt the policy—Orig. “A linces de discurso gibias de interioridad,” I have omitted the lynxes, who have little to do with cuttle-fish (pl. of Sp. jibia).

xcix

Things pass, etc. A favourite expression of Gracián’s; cf. cxxx, cxlvi; cf. also the German proverb, “Was scheint, das gilt.”

ci

What one pursues—Orig. “Lo que este sigue, el otro persigue.”

cii

find their proper place—Orig. “No caben en si porque no cabe en ellos la suerte.”

cv

gains by courtesy—Orig. “gana por lo cortés lo que pierde por lo corta.”

cix

prison—Orig. “galera,” a sort of Bridewell.

cxi

way to gain friendly feelings; cf. xxxii, xl.

cxii

Service Road—Orig. “Es grande el rodeo de solos los meritos sino se ayudan del favor.”

cxix

to be esteemed—Orig. “el que quiere hacer casa hace caso.”

cxxii

Distinction; from El Discreto, c. ii.

cxxvi

wise try to hide; cf. Prov. xii. 16 “A fool’s vexation is speedily known, but the prudent man concealeth shame.” live chastely—Orig. “Si no es uno casto, sea cauto”; Schop. turns neatly into Latin, caute nisi caste. learn to forget; cf. cclxii.

cxxvii

Grace in Everything; from El Heroe, c. xiii.

cxxix

Never complain. “I make it a point never to complain,” Mr. Disraeli once said in the House; cf. cxlv.

cxxx

Even the Right; cf. xcix. things are judged by their rackets—Orig. merely “juzganse las cosas por fuera.”

cxxxiii

Better Mad, etc.; cf. “In action wisdom goes by majorities,” from “The Pilgrim’s Scrip” in Richard Feverel. the aphorism; from Aristotle, Pol. i. s; also Heraclitus; cf. Grisebach, Schopenhauer’s Inedita, 78. Also Bacon, Essays.

cxxxvii

resembles the brute beast. See preceding note.

cxlvii

the sage said—Socrates.

cli

The pillow is a silent; quoted by Morley, Aphorisms.

clii

The more he does—Orig. “Tanto por mas, quanta por menos.” Schop. takes it differently: “Sei es dadurch lass er über uns oder class er unter uns stehe.” the cunning Fabula—Martial, Epigr. viii. 79.

cliii

Beware of entering. The great Jewish teacher Hillel gave braver advice: “Where there is no man, dare to be a man” (Ethics of the Fathers).

clv

synteresis; defined in Doctor and Student, Dial. I. ch. xiv., as:

“The natural power of the soul set in the highest part thereof, moving it and stirring it to good and abhorring evil”; cf. Milton, Common-place Book, ed. Horwood, § 79; and cf. Saunder, transl. of Schopenhauer, Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit, c. v. § 34. “wise on horseback”; cf. “Nadie es cuerdo á caballo,” Span. prov. quoted by Schop. clvi

Only after, etc.—Orig. “Que lo han de ser á examen de la discretion y á prueba de la fortuna, graduados no solo de la voluntad sino del entendimiento.” Intelligence brings friends; cf. Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll: “It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friends ready made at the hands of opportunity.”

clviii

Being in general; the scholastic maxim running “Quodlibet ens est unum, verum, bonum.”

clix

to put up with things; ἀνέχεσθαι καὶ ἀπέχεσθαι, the great Epicurean maxim.

clx

Be careful in Speaking; cf. Prov. xxix. 20. “Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words there is more hope of a fool than of him.”

clxii

enough to despise them; cf. ccv. who speaks well. “It’s poor foolishness,” says Adam Bede, “to run down your enemies”, cf. Goethe.

clxiv

Throw Straws—Orig. “Echar al ayre algunas cosas” merely refers to feigned blows; cf. xiii.

clxv

poisoned arrows; rather an embellishment on the orig., which has merely “pero no mala (guerra).”

clxvi

polite deceit; cf. cxci.

clxxiii

Motes offend them—Orig. “Ofendenla las motas que no son menester yá notas.” the Amant is half adamant. This seems the only way of retaining the “conceit” and jingle of the orig.: “La condition del Amante tiene la mitad de diamante en el durar y en el resistir.”

clxxv

Only Truth—profit; omitted by Schop.

clxxxii

A Grain of Boldness; cf. the opening of Bacon’s Essay “Of Boldnesse,” and Mrs. Poyser’s aphorism, “It’s them as take advantage that get advantage in this world, I think.”

clxxxvii

it is the privilege; cf. cclxxxvi. Have some one; cf. Bacon, “Of Envy”: “The wiser Sort of Great Persons bring in ever upon the Stage some Body upon whom to derive the Envy that would come upon themselves.”

cxc

The unlucky thinks—Orig. has a play upon the words “suerte” and “muerte.”

cxci

Theirs is the Bank of Elegance. I have no excuse for this. Orig. simply “Hacen precio con la honra.”

cxcii

no greater perversity—Orig. “No ay mayor desproposito que tomar lo todo de proposito.”

cxciii

Be intent—Orig. “Al intendido un buen entendedor.” their chestnuts—Orig. simply “Sacar del fuego el provecho ageno.”

cxcvi

ruling Star. There are some grounds for believing that great adventurers, like Napoleon, have a subjective star, hallucinatory of course, which appears to them at moments of great excitement; cf. Gallon, Human Faculty, 175-176.

cxcviii

native land a stepmother; cf. contra Galton, Hered. Gen., 360 “As a rule the very ablest men are strongly disinclined to emigrate,” and Prov. xxvii. 8.

cc

Leave Something; cf. lxxxii, ccxcix. The body must respire—Orig. “Espira el cuerpo y anhela el espiritu.”

ccii

Former are feminine; cf. Span. prov. “Palabras hembras son hechos machos.” Howell, Fam. Letters, quotes the saying as Italian; cf. my edition, p. 270 and n. Herbert also gives it in his Jacula Prudentum. Eminent deeds endure. Schop. has characteristically expressed his dissent by annotating his own copy of the Oráculo at this point with a pithy “vale el contrario.”

cciv

Attempt easy Tasks as if they were difficult. Approved by Mr. Morley, Aphorisms.

ccxx

If you cannot, etc. There may be here a reference to Lysander’s saying in Plutarch: “If the lion’s skin [of Hercules] is not long enough, we must stitch on to it a fox’s skin.

ccxxi

They are always on the point of some stupidity—omitted by Schop. meet with them easily—Orig. “Encuentranse con gran facilidad y rompen con infelicidad.”

ccxxii

Reserve is proof; cf. clxxix.

ccxxiii

more defects—so Orig. “Que son mas defectos que diferencias.”

ccxxiv

taken by the blade; cf. lxxxiv.

ccxxv

Know your chief Fault; cf. xxxiv.

ccxxvii

new casks; cf. the Span. prov. “A la vasija nueva dura el

resabio.” ccxxxvii

share pears—Orig. “Pensará partir peras y partirá piedras.” Schop. “Man glaubt Kirschen mit ihnen zu essen, wird aber nur die steine erhalten.”

ccxxxviii communicates his secret; cf. Span. prov. “A quien dizes poridad á esse tu das la liberdad,” neither tell secrets nor listen to them—Eng. I. puts it rather neatly: “’Tis a maxim for secrets Neither to hear them nor to tell them”; cf. the maxim of the Seven Sages, ap. Stobaeus, Flor. iii. 80: “Tell none a secret.” ccxxxviii something wanting; cf. xxxiv, ccxxv. ccxl

Speak to each; cf. Prov. xxvi. 5, “Answer a fool according to his folly.”

ccxlii

Everything stops—Orig. “Todo para en parar.” Schop. omits.

ccxlvi

To excuse oneself—Orig. “El escusarse antes de ocasion es culparse”; cf. Fr. prov. “Qui s’excuse s’accuse.”

ccli

Use human Means, etc.; cf. “Human wit ought to be exhausted before we presume to invoke Divine interposition” (B. Disraeli, Tancred).

cclii

berth and burthen—Orig. “Renuncie el cargo con la carga.” The story goes that an old woman met Hadrian with a petition. He repulsed her, saying he had no time. “Then give up your berth,” retorted the beldam. Hadrian recognised the justice of the rebuke and decided the petition on the spot. slaves of all; cf. “Men in great Place are thrice servants” (Bacon, Essay “Of Great Place”). There is something like this in El Criticon, i. 7.

ccliii

Do not Explain overmuch; cf. “Let the wise be warned against

too great readiness of explanation” (G. Eliot, Middlemarch). do not esteem what they understand; cf.— “Was man nicht weiss, das eben brauchte man, Und was man weiss kann man nicht brauchen.” Goethe, Faust, Th. I. venerate the unknown; cf. “Omne ignotum pro magnifico.” ccliv

they never come alone; cf. Span. prov. ap. Don Quixote, i. 28, “Un mal llama á otro,” and Shakespeare, “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions,” Hamlet, iv. 5. Do not wake Misfortune; cf. Span. prov. “Quando la mala Fortuna se duerme, nadie la despierte.” One slip is a little thing; cf. Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll.

cclxii

The things we remember best are those better forgotten.— quoted by Mr. Morley in Aphorisms.

cclxiv

Have no careless Days. D’Artagnan acts on this principle in keeping always on guard over the king during journeys. Vicomte de Bragelonne, c. xii.

cclxv

The Great Captain—Orig. “El gran Capitan,” a reference to Gonsalvo de Cordova (1443-1515), who commanded the Spanish land forces against Chas. VIII. in Italy, and received his title “el gran Capitan” July 1496.

cclxvii

Silken Words. Parysatis, mother of the younger Cyrus, advised one who was about to have an audience with a king to use words wrapped in fine linen; cf. Paley, Greek Wit, i. No. 152. mouth full of sugar; cf. contra Spurgeon’s John Ploughman’s Talk, “Do not be all sugar, or the world will suck you down.”

cclxviii

Wise does at once; cf. Span. prov. “Lo que hace el loco á la postre, hace sabio al principio (quoted by Trench, Proverbs 5, 116).

cclxxi

Let little knowledge—Orig. “A poco saber camino real.”

cclxxiii

If a man laughs always—Orig. “Conosca al que siempre rie por falto y al que nunca por falso.”

cclxxvi

At twenty; cf. the ages in Ethics of the Jewish Fathers, ed. C. Taylor, p. 111; L. Löw, Die Lebensalter, p. 22 and n.; and Shakespeare in As You Like It.

cclxxvii

From El Discreto, c. xii.

cclxxix

comes from cunning; cf. ccxiii.

cclxxxi

you cannot make a meal—Orig. “Porque regueldos de aristas no alientan.” Schop. omits.

cclxxxii

Ridiculous result—Orig. “Ridiculo parto de los mantes,” a reference to Horace’s “Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”

cclxxxv

Never die—Schop. adds to his copy “y mucho menos de necedad y ruindad agena.”

cclxxxvi

you can do more good; cf. clxxxvii; cf. “Power to doe good is the true and lawfull end of Aspiring” (Bacon, “Of Great Place”).

cclxxxviii steering by the wind. The derangement of metaphors is mine; orig. has simply “En portarse à la ocasion.” ccxci

The care of the wise, etc.—Orig. “Compita la atencion del juyzioso can la detencion del recatado.”

ccxcv

From El Discreto, c. xix.

ccxcvi

Noble qualities make noblemen—Orig. “Las primeras hazen los primeros hombres.”

ccc

Three HHH’s—Orig. “Tres eses hazen dichoso, Santo, Sano y Sabio.” Schop. “Drei Dinge die in Spanischen mit einem S anfangen machen glücklich —Heiligkeit, Gesundheit, and Weisheit.” M.G.D. “Three SSS render a man happy, Sanctity, Soundness of body, and Sageness.”

Reflections Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims François Duc De La Rochefoucauld

Translator’s Preface be made for an attempt “to translate the untranslatable.” Notwithstanding there are no less than eight English translations of La Rochefoucauld, hardly any are readable, none are free from faults, and all fail more or less to convey the author’s meaning. Though so often translated, there is not a complete English edition of the Maxims and Reflections. All the translations are confined exclusively to the Maxims, none include the Reflections. This may be accounted for, from the fact that most of the translations are taken from the old editions of the Maxims, in which the Reflections do not appear. Until M. Suard devoted his attention to the text of Rochefoucauld, the various editions were but reprints of the preceding ones, without any regard to the alterations made by the author in the later editions published during his life-time. So much was this the case, that Maxims which had been rejected by Rochefoucauld in his last edition, were still retained in the body of the work. To give but one example, the celebrated Maxim as to the misfortunes of our friends, was omitted in the last edition of the book, published in Rochefoucauld’s lifetime, yet in every English edition this Maxim appears in the body of the work. M. Aimé Martin in 1827 published an edition of the Maxims and Reflections which has ever since been the standard text of Rochefoucauld in France. The Maxims are printed from the edition of 1678, the last published during the author’s life, and the last which received his corrections. To this edition were added two Supplements; the first containing the Maxims which had appeared in the editions of 1665, 1666, and 1675, and which were afterwards omitted; the second, some additional Maxims found among various of the author’s manuscripts in the Royal Library at Paris. And a Series of Reflections which had been previously published in a work called “Receuil de pièces d’histoire et de littérature.” Paris, 1731. They were first published with the Maxims in an edition by Gabriel Brotier. In an edition of Rochefoucauld entitled “Reflexions, ou Sentences et Maximes Morales, augmentées de plus deux cent nouvelles Maximes et SOME

APOLOGY

MUST

Maximes et Pensées diverses suivant les copies Imprimées à Paris, chez Claude Barbin, et Matre Cramoisy 1692,”1 some fifty Maxims were added, ascribed by the editor to Rochefoucauld, and as his family allowed them to be published under his name, it seems probable they were genuine. These fifty form the third supplement to this book. The apology for the present edition of Rochefoucauld must therefore be twofold: firstly, that it is an attempt to give the public a complete English edition of Rochefoucauld’s works as a moralist. The body of the work comprises the Maxims as the author finally left them, the first supplement, those published in former editions, and rejected by the author in the later; the second, the unpublished Maxims taken from the author’s correspondence and manuscripts, and the third, the Maxims first published in 1692. While the Reflections, in which the thoughts in the Maxims are extended and elaborated, now appear in English for the first time. And secondly, that it is an attempt (to quote the preface of the edition of 1749) “to do the Duc de la Rochefoucauld the justice to make him speak English.” 1 In all the French editions this book is spoken of as published in 1693. The only copy I have seen is in the Cambridge University Library, 47, 16, 81, and is called “Reflexions Morales.”

Translator’s Introduction the “ancien regime” in France, “a despotism tempered by epigrams,” like most epigrammatic sentences, contains some truth, with much fiction. The society of the last half of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth centuries, was doubtless greatly influenced by the precise and terse mode in which the popular writers of that date expressed their thoughts. To a people naturally inclined to think that every possible view, every conceivable argument, upon a question is included in a short aphorism, a shrug, and the word “voilà,” truths expressed in condensed sentences must always have a peculiar charm. It is, perhaps, from this love of epigram, that we find so many eminent French writers of maxims. Pascal, De Retz, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, and Vauvenargues, each contributed to the rich stock of French epigrams. No other country can show such a list of brilliant writers—in England certainly we cannot. Our most celebrated, Lord Bacon, has, by his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their fame is, to a great measure, obscured. The only Englishman who could have rivalled La Rochefoucauld or La Bruyère was the Earl of Chesterfield, and he only could have done so from his very intimate connexion with France; but unfortunately his brilliant genius was spent in the impossible task of trying to refine a boorish young Briton, in “cutting blocks with a razor.” Of all the French epigrammatic writers La Rochefoucauld is at once the most widely known, and the most distinguished. Voltaire, whose opinion on the century of Louis XIV. is entitled to the greatest weight, says, “One of the works that most largely contributed to form the taste of the nation, and to diffuse a spirit of justice and precision, is the collection of maxims, by Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld.” This Francois, the second Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac, the author of the maxims, was one of the most illustrious members of the most illustrious families among the French noblesse. Descended from the ancient Dukes of Guienne, the founder of the Family Fulk or Foucauld, a younger branch of the House of Lusignan, was at the commencement of the THE DESCRIPTION OF

eleventh century the Seigneur of a small town, La Roche, in the Angounois. Our chief knowledge of this feudal lord is drawn from the monkish chronicles. As the benefactor of the various abbeys and monasteries in his province, he is naturally spoken of by them in terms of eulogy, and in the charter of one of the abbeys of Angouleme he is called, “vir nobilissimus Fulcaldus.” His territorial power enabled him to adopt what was then, as is still in Scotland, a common custom, to prefix the name of his estate to his surname, and thus to create and transmit to his descendants the illustrious surname of La Rochefoucauld. From that time until that great crisis in the history of the French aristocracy, the Revolution of 1789, the family of La Rochefoucauld have been, “if not first, in the very first line” of that most illustrious body. One Seigneur served under Philip Augustus against Richard Coeur de Lion, and was made prisoner at the battle of Gisors. The eighth Seigneur Guy performed a great tilt at Bordeaux, attended (according to Froissart) to the Lists by some two hundred of his kindred and relations. The sixteenth Seigneur Francais was chamberlain to Charles VIII. and Louis XII., and stood at the font as sponsor, giving his name to that last light of French chivalry, Francis I. In 1515 he was created a baron, and was afterwards advanced to a count, on account of his great service to Francis and his predecessors. The second count pushed the family fortune still further by obtaining a patent as the Prince de Marsillac. His widow, Anne de Polignac, entertained Charles V. at the family chateau at Verteuil, in so princely a manner that on leaving Charles observed, “He had never entered a house so redolent of high virtue, uprightness, and lordliness as that mansion.” The third count, after serving with distinction under the Duke of Guise against the Spaniards, was made prisoner at St. Quintin, and only regained his liberty to fall a victim to the “bloody infamy” of St. Bartholomew. His son, the fourth count, saved with difficulty from that massacre, after serving with distinction in the religious wars, was taken prisoner in a skirmish at St. Yriex la Perche, and murdered by the Leaguers in cold blood. The fifth count, one of the ministers of Louis XIII., after fighting against the English and Buckingham at the Ile de Ré, was created a duke. His son Francis, the second duke, by his writings has made the family name a household word.

The third duke fought in many of the earlier campaigns of Louis XIV. at Torcy, Lille, Cambray, and was dangerously wounded at the passage of the Rhine. From his bravery he rose to high favour at Court, and was appointed Master of the Horse (Grand Veneur) and Lord Chamberlain. His son, the fourth duke, commanded the regiment of Navarre, and took part in storming the village of Neerwinden on the day when William III. was defeated at Landen. He was afterwards created Duc de la Rochequyon and Marquis de Liancourt. The fifth duke, banished from Court by Louis XV., became the friend of the philosopher Voltaire. The sixth duke, the friend of Condorcet, was the last of the long line of noble lords who bore that distinguished name. In those terrible days of September, 1792, when the French people were proclaiming universal humanity, the duke was seized as an aristocrat by the mob at Gisors and put to death behind his own carriage, in which sat his mother and his wife, at the very place where, some six centuries previously, his ancestor had been taken prisoner in a fair fight. A modern writer has spoken of this murder “as an admirable reprisal upon the grandson for the writings and conduct of the grandfather.” But M. Sainte Beuve observes as to this, he can see nothing admirable in the death of the duke, and if it proves anything, it is only that the grandfather was not so wrong in his judgment of men as is usually supposed. Francis, the author, was born on the 15th December 1615. M. Sainte Beuve divides his life into four periods, first, from his birth till he was thirty-five, when he became mixed up in the war of the Fronde; the second period, during the progress of that war; the third, the twelve years that followed, while he recovered from his wounds, and wrote his maxims during his retirement from society; and the last from that time till his death. In the same way that Herodotus calls each book of his history by the name of one of the muses, so each of these four periods of La Rochefoucauld’s life may be associated with the name of a woman who was for the time his ruling passion. These four ladies are the Duchesse de Chevreuse, the Duchesse de Longueville, Madame de Sablé, and Madame de La Fayette. La Rochefoucauld’s early education was neglected; his father, occupied in the affairs of state, either had not, or did not devote any time to his

education. His natural talents and his habits of observation soon, however, supplied all deficiencies. By birth and station placed in the best society of the French Court, he soon became a most finished courtier. Knowing how precarious Court favour then was, his father, when young Rochefoucauld was only nine years old, sent him into the army. He was subsequently attached to the regiment of Auvergne. Though but sixteen he was present, and took part in the military operations at the siege of Cassel. The Court of Louis XIII. was then ruled imperiously by Richelieu. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld was strongly opposed to the Cardinal’s party. By joining in the plots of Gaston of Orleans, he gave Richelieu an opportunity of ridding Paris of his opposition. When those plots were discovered, the Duke was sent into a sort of banishment to Blois. His son, who was then at Court with him, was, upon the pretext of a liaison with Mdlle. d’Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting on the Queen (Anne of Austria), but in reality to prevent the Duke learning what was passing at Paris, sent with his father. The result of the exile was Rochefoucauld’s marriage. With the exception that his wife’s name was Mdlle. Vivonne, and that she was the mother of five sons and three daughters, nothing is known of her. While Rochefoucauld and his father were at Blois, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, one of the beauties of the Court, and the mistress of Louis, was banished to Tours. She and Rochefoucauld met, and soon became intimate, and for a time she was destined to be the one motive of his actions. The Duchesse was engaged in a correspondence with the Court of Spain and the Queen. Into this plot Rochefoucauld threw himself with all his energy; his connexion with the Queen brought him back to his old love Mdlle. d’Hautefort, and led him to her party, which he afterwards followed. The course he took shut him off from all chance of Court favour. The King regarded him with coldness, the Cardinal with irritation. Although the Bastile and the scaffold, the fate of Chalais and Montmorency, were before his eyes, they failed to deter him from plotting. He was about twenty-three; returning to Paris, he warmly sided with the Queen. He says in his Memoirs that the only persons she could then trust were himself and Mdlle. d’Hautefort, and it was proposed he should take both of them from Paris to Brussels. Into this plan he entered with all his youthful indiscretion, it being for several reasons the very one he would wish to adopt, as it would strengthen his influence with Anne of Austria, place Richelieu and his master in an uncomfortable position, and

save Mdlle. d’Hautefort from the attentions the King was showing her. But Richelieu of course discovered this plot, and Rochefoucauld was, of course, sent to the Bastile. He was liberated after a week’s imprisonment, but banished to his chateau at Verteuil. The reason for this clemency was that the Cardinal desired to win Rochefoucauld from the Queen’s party. A command in the army was offered to him, but by the Queen’s orders refused. For some three years Rochefoucauld remained at Verteuil, waiting the time for his reckoning with Richelieu; speculating on the King’s death, and the favours he would then receive from the Queen. During this period he was more or less engaged in plotting against his enemy the Cardinal, and hatching treason with Cinq Mars and De Thou. M. Sainte Beuve says, that unless we study this first part of Rochefoucauld’s life, we shall never understand his maxims. The bitter disappointment of the passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the deceit and treachery then witnessed, furnished the real key to their meaning. The cutting cynicism of the morality was built on the ruins of that chivalrous ambition and romantic affection. He saw his friend Cinq Mars sent to the scaffold, himself betrayed by men whom he had trusted, and the only reason he could assign for these actions was intense selfishness. Meanwhile, Richelieu died. Rochefoucauld returned to Court, and found Anne of Austria regent, and Mazarin minister. The Queen’s former friends flocked there in numbers, expecting that now their time of prosperity had come. They were bitterly disappointed. Mazarin relied on hope instead of gratitude, to keep the Queen’s adherents on his side. The most that any received were promises that were never performed. In after years, doubtless, Rochefoucauld’s recollection of his disappointment led him to write the maxim: “We promise according to our hopes, we perform according to our fears.” But he was not even to receive promises; he asked for the Governorship of Havre, which was then vacant. He was flatly refused. Disappointment gave rise to anger, and uniting with his old flame, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, who had received the same treatment, and with the Duke of Beaufort, they formed a conspiracy against the government. The plot was, of course, discovered and crushed. Beaufort was arrested, the Duchesse banished. Irritated and disgusted, Rochefoucauld went with the Duc d’Enghein, who was then joining the army, on a campaign, and here he

found the one love of his life, the Duke’s sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady, young, beautiful, and accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was the cause of his taking the side of Condé in the subsequent civil war. Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. He was badly wounded at the siege of Mardik, and returned from thence to Paris. On recovering from his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. This war is said to have been most ridiculous, as being carried on without a definite object, a plan, or a leader. But this description is hardly correct; it was the struggle of the French nobility against the rule of the Court; an attempt, the final attempt, to recover their lost influence over the state, and to save themselves from sinking under the rule of cardinals and priests. With the general history of that war we have nothing to do; it is far too complicated and too confused to be stated here. The memoirs of Rochefoucauld and De Retz will give the details to those who desire to trace the contests of the factions—the course of the intrigues. We may confine ourselves to its progress so far as it relates to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld. On the Cardinal causing the Princes de Condé and Conti, and the Duc de Longueville, to be arrested, Rochefoucauld and the Duchess fled into Normandy. Leaving her at Dieppe, he went into Poitou, of which province he had some years previously bought the post of governor. He was there joined by the Duc de Bouillon, and he and the Duke marched to, and occupied Bordeaux. Cardinal Mazarin and Marechal de la Meilleraie advanced in force on Bordeaux, and attacked the town. A bloody battle followed. Rochefoucauld defended the town with the greatest bravery, and repulsed the Cardinal. Notwithstanding the repulse, the burghers of Bordeaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city from destruction. The Parliament of Bordeaux compelled Rochefoucauld to surrender. He did so, and returned nominally to Poitou, but in reality in secret to Paris. There he found the Queen engaged in trying to maintain her position by playing off the rival parties of the Prince Condé and the Cardinal De Retz against each other. Rochefoucauld eagerly espoused his old party—that of Condé. In August, 1651, the contending parties met in the Hall of the Parliament of Paris, and it was with great difficulty they were prevented from coming to blows even there. It is even said that Rochefoucauld had ordered his followers to murder De Retz.

Rochefoucauld was soon to undergo a bitter disappointment. While occupied with party strife and faction in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse left him, and formed an alliance with the Duc de Nemours. Rochefoucauld still loved her. It was, probably, thinking of this that he afterwards wrote, “Jealousy is born with love, but does not die with it.” He endeavoured to get Madame de Chatillon, the old mistress of the Duc de Nemours, reinstated in favour, but in this he did not succeed. The Duc de Nemours was soon after killed in a duel. The war went on, and after several indecisive skirmishes, the decisive battle was fought at Paris, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where the Parisians first learnt the use or the abuse of their favourite defence, the barricade. In this battle, Rochefoucauld behaved with great bravery. He was wounded in the head, a wound which for a time deprived him of his sight. Before he recovered, the war was over, Louis XIV. had attained his majority, the gold of Mazarin, the arms of Turenne, had been successful, the French nobility were vanquished, the court supremacy established. This completed Rochefoucauld’s active life. When he recovered his health, he devoted himself to society. Madame de Sablé assumed a hold over him. He lived a quiet life, and occupied himself in composing an account of his early life, called his “Memoirs,” and his immortal “Maxims.” From the time he ceased to take part in public life, Rochefoucauld’s real glory began. Having acted the various parts of soldier, politician, and lover with but small success, he now commenced the part of moralist, by which he is known to the world. Living in the most brilliant society that France possessed, famous from his writings, distinguished from the part he had taken in public affairs, he formed the centre of one of those remarkable French literary societies, a society which numbered among its members La Fontaine, Racine, Boileau. Among his most attached friends was Madame de La Fayette (the authoress of the “Princess of Cleeves”), and this friendship continued until his death. He was not, however, destined to pass away in that gay society without some troubles. At the passage of the Rhine in 1672 two of his sons were engaged; the one was killed, the other severely wounded. Rochefoucauld was much affected by this, but perhaps still more by the death of the young Duc de Longueville, who perished on the same occasion.

Sainte Beuve says that the cynical book and that young life were the only fruits of the war of the Fronde. Madame de Sévigné, who was with him when he heard the news of the death of so much that was dear to him, says, “I saw his heart laid bare on that cruel occasion, and his courage, his merit, his tenderness, and good sense surpassed all I ever met with. I hold his wit and accomplishments as nothing in comparison.” The combined effect of his wounds and the gout caused the last years of Rochefoucauld’s life to be spent in great pain. Madame de Sévigné, who was {with} him continually during his last illness, speaks of the fortitude with which he bore his sufferings as something to be admired. Writing to her daughter, she says, “Believe me, it is not for nothing he has moralised all his life; he has thought so often on his last moments that they are nothing new or unfamiliar to him.” In his last illness, the great moralist was attended by the great divine, Bossuet. Whether that matchless eloquence or his own philosophic calm had, in spite of his writings, brought him into the state Madame de Sévigné describes, we know not; but one, or both, contributed to his passing away in a manner that did not disgrace a French noble or a French philosopher. On the 11th March, 1680, he ended his stormy life in peace after so much strife, a loyal subject after so much treason. One of his friends, Madame Deshoulières, shortly before he died sent him an ode on death, which aptly describes his state— “Oui, soyez alors plus ferme, Que ces vulgaires humains Qui, près de leur dernier terme, De vaines terreurs sont pleins. En sage que rien n’offense, Livrez-vous sans resistance A d’inévitables traits; Et, d’une demarche égale, Passez cette onde fatal Qu’on ne repasse jamais.” Rochefoucauld left behind him only two works, the one, Memoirs of his own time, the other the Maxims. The first described the scenes in which his youth had been spent, and though written in a lively style, and giving

faithful pictures of the intrigues and the scandals of the court during Louis XIV.’s minority, yet, except to the historian, has ceased at the present day to be of much interest. It forms, perhaps, the true key to understand the special as opposed to general application of the maxims. Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that “there are few people so bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld to the Commentaries of Caesar,” or the statement of Voltaire, “that the Memoirs are universally read and the Maxims are learnt by heart,” few persons at the present day ever heard of the Memoirs, and the knowledge of most as to the Maxims is confined to that most celebrated of all, though omitted from his last edition, “There is something in the misfortunes of our best friends which does not wholly displease us.” Yet it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon none have so many contradictory opinions been given. “Few books,” says Mr. Hallam, “have been more highly extolled, or more severely blamed, than the maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucauld, and that not only here, but also in France.” Rousseau speaks of it as, “a sad and melancholy book,” though he goes on to say “it is usually so in youth when we do not like seeing man as he is.” Voltaire says of it, in the words above quoted, “One of the works which most contributed to form the taste of the (French) nation, and to give it a spirit of justness and precision, was the collection of the maxims of Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld, though there is scarcely more than one truth running through the book—that ‘selflove is the motive of everything’—yet this thought is presented under so many varied aspects that it is nearly always striking. It is not so much a book as it is materials for ornamenting a book. This little collection was read with avidity, it taught people to think, and to comprise their thoughts in a lively, precise, and delicate turn of expression. This was a merit which, before him, no one in Europe had attained since the revival of letters.” Dr. Johnson speaks of it as “the only book written by a man of fashion, of which professed authors need be jealous.” Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says, “Till you come to know mankind by your experience, I know no thing nor no man that can in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims, which I would advise you to

look into for some moments at least every day of your life, is, I fear, too like and too exact a picture of human nature. I own it seems to degrade it, but yet my experience does not convince me that it degrades it unjustly.” Bishop Butler, on the other hand, blames the book in no measured terms. “There is a strange affectation,” says the bishop, “in some people of explaining away all particular affection, and representing the whole life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. Hence arise that surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old, Hobbes, the author of ‘Reflexions Morales,’ and the whole set of writers, of calling actions interested which are done of the most manifest known interest, merely for the gratification of a present passion.” The judgment the reader will be most inclined to adopt will perhaps be either that of Mr. Hallam, “Concise and energetic in expression, reduced to those short aphorisms which leave much to the reader’s acuteness and yet save his labour, not often obscure, and never wearisome, an evident generalisation of long experience, without pedantry, without method, without deductive reasonings, yet wearing an appearance at least of profundity; they delight the intelligent though indolent man of the world, and must be read with some admiration by the philosopher … yet they bear witness to the contracted observation and the precipitate inferences which an intercourse with a single class of society scarcely fails to generate.” Or that of Addison, who speaks of Rochefoucauld “as the great philosopher for administering consolation to the idle, the curious, and the worthless part of mankind.” We are fortunately in possession of materials such as rarely exist to enable us to form a judgment of Rochefoucauld’s character. We have, with a vanity that could only exist in a Frenchman, a description or portrait of himself, of his own painting, and one of those inimitable living sketches in which his great enemy, Cardinal De Retz, makes all the chief actors in the court of the regency of Anne of Austria pass across the stage before us. We will first look on the portrait Rochefoucauld has left us of himself: “I am,” says he, “of a medium height, active, and well-proportioned. My complexion dark, but uniform, a high forehead; and of moderate height, black eyes, small, deep set, eyebrows black and thick but well placed. I am rather embarrassed in talking of my nose, for it is neither flat nor aquiline, nor large; nor pointed: but I believe, as far as I can say, it is too large than

too small, and comes down just a trifle too low. I have a large mouth, lips generally red enough, neither shaped well nor badly. I have white teeth, and fairly even. I have been told I have a little too much chin. I have just looked at myself in the glass to ascertain the fact, and I do not know how to decide. As to the shape of my face, it is either square or oval, but which I should find it very difficult to say. I have black hair, which curls by nature, and thick and long enough to entitle me to lay claim to a fine head. I have in my countenance somewhat of grief and pride, which gives many people an idea I despise them, although I am not at all given to do so. My gestures are very free, rather inclined to be too much so, for in speaking they make me use too much action. Such, candidly, I believe I am in outward appearance, and I believe it will be found that what I have said above of myself is not far from the real case. I shall use the same truthfulness in the remainder of my picture, for I have studied myself sufficiently to know myself well; and I will lack neither boldness to speak as freely as I can of my good qualities, nor sincerity to freely avow that I have faults. “In the first place, to speak of my temper. I am melancholy, and I have hardly been seen for the last three or four years to laugh above three or four times. It seems to me that my melancholy would be even endurable and pleasant if I had none but what belonged to me constitutionally; but it arises from so many other causes, fills my imagination in such a way, and possesses my mind so strongly that for the greater part of my time I remain without speaking a word, or give no meaning to what I say. I am extremely reserved to those I do not know, and I am not very open with the greater part of those I do. It is a fault I know well, and I should neglect no means to correct myself of it; but as a certain gloomy air I have tends to make me seem more reserved than I am in fact, and as it is not in our power to rid ourselves of a bad expression that arises from a natural conformation of features, I think that even when I have cured myself internally, externally some bad expression will always remain. “I have ability. I have no hesitation in saying it, as for what purpose should I pretend otherwise. So great circumvention, and so great depreciation, in speaking of the gifts one has, seems to me to hide a little vanity under an apparent modesty, and craftily to try to make others believe in greater virtues than are imputed to us. On my part I am content not to be considered better-looking than I am, nor of a better temper than I describe,

nor more witty and clever than I am. Once more, I have ability, but a mind spoilt by melancholy, for though I know my own language tolerably well, and have a good memory, a mode of thought not particularly confused, I yet have so great a mixture of discontent that I often say what I have to say very badly. “The conversation of gentlemen is one of the pleasures that most amuses me. I like it to be serious and morality to form the substance of it. Yet I also know how to enjoy it when trifling; and if I do not make many witty speeches, it is not because I do not appreciate the value of trifles well said, and that I do not find great amusement in that manner of raillery in which certain prompt and ready-witted persons excel so well. I write well in prose; I do well in verse; and if I was envious of the glory that springs from that quarter, I think with a little labour I could acquire some reputation. I like reading, in general; but that in which one finds something to polish the wit and strengthen the soul is what I like best. But, above all, I have the greatest pleasure in reading with an intelligent person, for then we reflect constantly upon what we read, and the observations we make form the most pleasant and useful form of conversation there is. “I am a fair critic of the works in verse and prose that are shown me; but perhaps I speak my opinion with almost too great freedom. Another fault in me is that I have sometimes a spirit of delicacy far too scrupulous, and a spirit of criticism far too severe. I do not dislike an argument, and I often of my own free will engage in one; but I generally back my opinion with too much warmth, and sometimes, when the wrong side is advocated against me, from the strength of my zeal for reason, I become a little unreasonable myself. “I have virtuous sentiments, good inclinations, and so strong a desire to be a wholly good man that my friend cannot afford me a greater pleasure than candidly to show me my faults. Those who know me most intimately, and those who have the goodness sometimes to give me the above advice, know that I always receive it with all the joy that could be expected, and with all reverence of mind that could be desired. “I have all the passions pretty mildly, and pretty well under control. I am hardly ever seen in a rage, and I never hated any one. I am not, however, incapable of avenging myself if I have been offended, or if my honour demanded I should resent an insult put upon me; on the contrary, I feel clear

that duty would so well discharge the office of hatred in me that I should follow my revenge with even greater keenness than other people. “Ambition does not weary me. I fear but few things, and I do not fear death in the least. I am but little given to pity, and I could wish I was not so at all. Though there is nothing I would not do to comfort an afflicted person, and I really believe that one should do all one can to show great sympathy to him for his misfortune, for miserable people are so foolish that this does them the greatest good in the world; yet I also hold that we should be content with expressing sympathy, and carefully avoid having any. It is a passion that is wholly worthless in a well-regulated mind, which only serves to weaken the heart, and which should be left to ordinary persons, who, as they never do anything from reason, have need of passions to stimulate their actions. “I love my friends; and I love them to such an extent that I would not for a moment weigh my interest against theirs. I condescend to them, I patiently endure their bad temper. But, also, I do not make much of their caresses, and I do not feel great uneasiness in their absence. “Naturally, I have but little curiosity about the majority of things that stir up curiosity in other men. I am very secret, and I have less difficulty than most men in holding my tongue as to what is told me in confidence. I am most particular as to my word, and I would never fail, whatever might be the consequence, to do what I had promised; and I have made this an inflexible law during the whole of my life. “I keep the most punctilious civility to women. I do not believe I have ever said anything before them which could cause them annoyance. When their intellect is cultivated, I prefer their society to that of men: one there finds a mildness one does not meet with among ourselves, and it seems to me beyond this that they express themselves with more neatness, and give a more agreeable turn to the things they talk about. As for flirtation, I formerly indulged in a little, now I shall do so no more, though I am still young. I have renounced all flirtation, and I am simply astonished that there are still so many sensible people who can occupy their time with it. “I wholly approve of real loves; they indicate greatness of soul, and although, in the uneasiness they give rise to, there is a something contrary to strict wisdom, they fit in so well with the most severe virtue, that I believe they cannot be censured with justice. To me who have known all

that is fine and grand in the lofty aspirations of love, if I ever fall in love, it will assuredly be in love of that nature. But in accordance with the present turn of my mind, I do not believe that the knowledge I have of it will ever change from my mind to my heart.” Such is his own description of himself. Let us now turn to the other picture, delineated by the man who was his bitterest enemy, and whom (we say it with regret) Rochefoucauld tried to murder. Cardinal De Retz thus paints him:— “In M. de la Rochefoucauld there was ever an indescribable something. From his infancy he always wanted to be mixed up with plots, at a time when he could not understand even the smallest interests (which has indeed never been his weak point,) or comprehend greater ones, which in another sense has never been his strong point. He was never fitted for any matter, and I really cannot tell the reason. His glance was not sufficiently wide, and he could not take in at once all that lay in his sight, but his good sense, perfect in theories, combined with his gentleness, his winning ways, his pleasing manners, which are perfect, should more than compensate for his lack of penetration. He always had a natural irresoluteness, but I cannot say to what this irresolution is to be attributed. It could not arise in him from the wealth of his imagination, for that was anything but lively. I cannot put it down to the barrenness of his judgment, for, although he was not prompt in action, he had a good store of reason. We see the effects of this irresolution, although we cannot assign a cause for it. He was never a general, though a great soldier; never, naturally, a good courtier, although he had always a good idea of being so. He was never a good partizan, although all his life engaged in intrigues. That air of pride and timidity which your see in his private life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner. He always believed he had need of it; and this, combined with his ‘Maxims,’ which show little faith in virtue, and his habitual custom, to give up matters with the same haste he undertook them, leads me to the conclusion that he would have done far better to have known his own mind, and have passed himself off, as he could have done, for the most polished courtier, the most agreeable man in private life that had appeared in his century.” It is but justice to the Cardinal to say, that the Duc is not painted in such dark colours as we should have expected, judging from what we know of the character of De Retz. With his marvellous power of depicting character,

a power unrivalled, except by St. Simon and perhaps by Lord Clarendon, we should have expected the malignity of the priest would have stamped the features of his great enemy with the impress of infamy, and not have simply made him appear a courtier, weak, insincere, and nothing more. Though rather beyond our subject, the character of Cardinal de Retz, as delineated by Mdme. Sévigné, in one of her letters, will help us to form a true conclusion on the different characters of the Duc and the Cardinal. She says:— “Paul de Gondi Cardinal de Retz possesses great elevation of character, a certain extent of intellect, and more of the ostentation than of the true greatness of courage. He has an extraordinary memory, more energy than polish in his words, an easy humour, docility of character, and weakness in submitting to the complaints and reproaches of his friends, a little piety, some appearances of religion. He appears ambitious without being really so. Vanity and those who have guided him, have made him undertake great things, almost all opposed to his profession. He excited the greatest troubles in the State without any design of turning them to account, and far from declaring himself the enemy of Cardinal Mazarin with any view of occupying his place, he thought of nothing but making himself an object of dread to him, and flattering himself with the false vanity of being his rival. He was clever enough, however, to take advantage of the public calamities to get himself made Cardinal. He endured his imprisonment with firmness, and owed his liberty solely to his own daring. In the obscurity of a life of wandering and concealment, his indolence for many years supported him with reputation. He preserved the Archbishopric of Paris against the power of Cardinal Mazarin, but after the death of that minister, he resigned it without knowing what he was doing, and without making use of the opportunity to promote the interests of himself and his friends. He has taken part in several conclaves, and his conduct has always increased his reputation. “His natural bent is to indolence, nevertheless he labours with activity in pressing business, and reposes with indifference when it is concluded. He has great presence of mind, and knows so well how to turn it to his own advantage on all occasions presented him by fortune, that it would seem as if he had foreseen and desired them. He loves to narrate, and seeks to dazzle all his listeners indifferently by his extraordinary adventures, and his imagination often supplies him with more than his memory. The generality

of his qualities are false, and what has most contributed to his reputation is his power of throwing a good light on his faults. He is insensible alike to hatred and to friendship, whatever pains he may be at to appear taken up with the one or the other. He is incapable of envy or avarice, whether from virtue or from carelessness. He has borrowed more from his friends than a private person could ever hope to be able to repay; he has felt the vanity of acquiring so much on credit, and of undertaking to discharge it. He has neither taste nor refinement; he is amused by everything and pleased by nothing. He avoids difficult matters with considerable address, not allowing people to penetrate the slight acquaintance he has with everything. The retreat he has just made from the world is the most brilliant and the most unreal action of his life; it is a sacrifice he has made to his pride under the pretence of devotion; he quits the court to which he cannot attach himself, and retires from a world which is retiring from him.” The Maxims were first published in 1665, with a preface by Segrais. This preface was omitted in the subsequent editions. The first edition contained 316 maxims, counting the last upon death, which was not numbered. The second in 1666 contained only 102; the third in 1671, and the fourth in 1675, 413. In this last edition we first meet with the introductory maxim, “Our virtues are generally but disguised vices.” The edition of 1678, the fifth, increased the number to 504. This was the last edition revised by the author, and published in his lifetime. The text of that edition has been used for the present translation. The next edition, the sixth, was published in 1693, about thirteen years after the author’s death. This edition included fifty new maxims, attributed by the editor to Rochefoucauld. Most likely they were his writing, as the fact was never denied by his family, through whose permission they were published. They form the third supplement to the translation. This sixth edition was published by Claude Barbin, and the French editions since that time have been too numerous to be enumerated. The great popularity of the Maxims is perhaps best shown from the numerous translations that have been made of them. No less than eight English translations, or so-called translations, have appeared; one American, a Swedish, and a Spanish translation, an Italian imitation, with parallel passages, and an English imitation by Hazlitt. The titles of the English editions are as follows:—

i. Seneca Unmasked. By Mrs. Aphara Behn. London, 1689. She calls the author the Duke of Rushfucave. ii. Moral Maxims and Reflections, in four parts. By the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Now made English. London, 1694. 12 mo. iii. Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Newly made English. London, 1706. 12 mo. iv. Moral Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Translated from the French. With notes. London, 1749. 12 mo. v. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Revised and improved. London, 1775. 8 vo. vi. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. A new edition, revised and improved, by L. D. London, 1781. 8 vo. vii. The Gentleman’s Library. La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims and Moral Reflections. London, 1813. 12 mo. viii. Moral Reflections, Sentences, and Maxims of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, newly translated from the French; with an introduction and notes. London, 1850. 16 mo. ix. Maxims and Moral Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld: with a Memoir by the Chevalier de Chatelain. London, 1868. 12 mo. The perusal of the Maxims will suggest to every reader to a greater or less degree, in accordance with the extent of his reading, parallel passages, and similar ideas. Of ancient writers Rochefoucauld most strongly reminds us of Tacitus; of modern writers, Junius most strongly reminds us of Rochefoucauld. Some examples from both are given in the notes to this translation. It is curious to see how the expressions of the bitterest writer of English political satire to a great extent express the same ideas as the great French satirist of private life. Had space permitted the parallel could have been drawn very closely, and much of the invective of Junius traced to its source in Rochefoucauld. One of the persons whom Rochefoucauld patronised and protected, was the great French fabulist, La Fontaine. This patronage was repaid by La Fontaine giving, in one of his fables, “L’Homme et son Image,” an

elaborate defence of his patron. After there depicting a man who fancied himself one of the most lovely in the world, and who complained he always found all mirrors untrustworthy, at last discovered his real image reflected in the water. He thus applies his fable:— “Je parle à tous: et cette erreur extrême, Est un mal que chacun se plait d’entretenir, Notre âme, c’est cet homme amoureux de lui même, Tant de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d’autrui. Miroirs, de nos défauts les peintres légitimes, Et quant au canal, c’est celui Qui chacun sait, le livre des MAXIMES.” It is just this: the book is a mirror in which we all see ourselves. This has made it so unpopular. It is too true. We dislike to be told of our faults, while we only like to be told of our neighbour’s. Notwithstanding Rousseau’s assertion, it is young men, who, before they know their own faults and only know their neighbours’, that read and thoroughly appreciate Rochefoucauld. After so many varied opinions he then pleases us more and seems far truer than he is in reality, it is impossible to give any general conclusion of such distinguished writers on the subject. Each reader will form his own opinion of the merits of the author and his book. To some, both will seem deserving of the highest praise; to others both will seem deserving of the highest censure. The truest judgment as to the author will be found in the remarks of a countryman of his own, as to the book in the remarks of a countryman of ours. As to the author, M. Sainte Beuve says:—“C’était un misanthrope poli, insinuant, souriant, qui précédait de bien peu et préparait avec charme l’autre MISANTHROPE.” As to the book, Mr. Hallam says:—“Among the books in ancient and modern times which record the conclusions of observing men on the moral qualities of their fellows, a high place should be reserved for the Maxims of Rochefoucauld.”

REFLECTIONS; OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. [This epigraph which is the key to the system of La Rochefoucauld, is found in another form as No. 179 of the maxims of the first edition, 1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd, and reappears for the first time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as at present, at the head of the Reflections.—Aimé Martin. Its best answer is arrived at by reversing the predicate and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory maxim equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues disguised.] 1.—What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste. “Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave; Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.” Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. i. line 115. 2.—Self-love is the greatest of flatterers. 3.—Whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love, there remain many unexplored territories there. [This is the first hint of the system the author tries to develope. He wishes to find in vice a motive for all our actions, but this does not suffice

him; he is obliged to call other passions to the help of his system and to confound pride, vanity, interest and egotism with self love. This confusion destroys the unity of his principle.—Aimé Martin.] 4.—Self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world. 5.—The duration of our passions is no more dependant upon us than the duration of our life. [Then what becomes of free will?—Aimé Martin] 6.—Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes renders the most foolish man clever. 7.—Great and striking actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by politicians as the effect of great designs, instead of which they are commonly caused by the temper and the passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Anthony, which is set down to the ambition they entertained of making themselves masters of the world, was probably but an effect of jealousy. 8.—The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without. [See Maxim 249 which is an illustration of this.] 9.—The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy. 10.—In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions; so that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another. 11.—Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring though timidity. 12.—Whatever care we take to conceal our passions under the appearances of piety and honour, they are always to be seen through these veils.

[The 1st edition, 1665, preserves the image perhaps better—“however we may conceal our passions under the veil, etc., there is always some place where they peep out.”] 13.—Our self love endures more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than of our opinions. 14.—Men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit. 15.—The clemency of Princes is often but policy to win the affections of the people. [“So many are the advantages which monarchs gain by clemency, so greatly does it raise their fame and endear them to their subjects, that it is generally happy for them to have an opportunity of displaying it.” — Montesquieu, Esprit Des Lois, Lib. VI., C. 21.] 16.—This clemency of which they make a merit, arises oftentimes from vanity, sometimes from idleness, oftentimes from fear, and almost always from all three combined. [La Rochefoucauld is content to paint the age in which he lived. Here the clemency spoken of is nothing more than an expression of the policy of Anne of Austria. Rochefoucauld had sacrificed all to her; even the favour of Cardinal Richelieu, but when she became regent she bestowed her favours upon those she hated; her friends were forgotten.—Aimé Martin. The reader will hereby see that the age in which the writer lived best interprets his maxims.] 17.—The moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which good fortune bestows upon their temper. 18.—Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their

greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune. 19.—We have all sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of others. [The strongest example of this is the passage in Lucretius, lib. ii., line I: — “Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem.”] 20.—The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the agitation of their hearts. [Thus wisdom is only hypocrisy, says a commentator. This definition of constancy is a result of maxim 18.] 21.—Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes. [See this thought elaborated in maxim 504.] 22.—Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it. 23.—Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die because they know not how to prevent dying. 24.—When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like other men. [Both these maxims have been rewritten and made conciser by the author; the variations are not worth quoting.] 25.—We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune. [“Prosperity do{th} best discover vice, but adversity do{th} best discover virtue.” —Lord Bacon, Essays{, (1625), “Of Adversity”}.]

{The quotation wrongly had “does” for “doth”.} 26.—Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking. 27.—People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her. 28.—Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others. 29.—The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities. 30.—We have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an excuse we say things are impossible. 31.—If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others. 32.—Jealousy lives upon doubt; and comes to an end or becomes a fury as soon as it passes from doubt to certainty. 33.—Pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away vanity. [See maxim 450, where the author states, what we take from our other faults we add to our pride.] 34.—If we had no pride we should not complain of that of others. [“The proud are ever most provoked by pride.” —Cowper, Conversation 160.] 35.—Pride is much the same in all men, the only difference is the method and manner of showing it. [“Pride bestowed on all a common friend.” —Pope, Essay On Man, Ep. ii., line 273.]

36.—It would seem that nature, which has so wisely ordered the organs of our body for our happiness, has also given us pride to spare us the mortification of knowing our imperfections. 37.—Pride has a larger part than goodness in our remonstrances with those who commit faults, and we reprove them not so much to correct as to persuade them that we ourselves are free from faults. 38.—We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears. [“The reason why the Cardinal (Mazarin) deferred so long to grant the favours he had promised, was because he was persuaded that hope was much more capable of keeping men to their duty than gratitude.” — Fragments Historiques. Racine.] 39.—Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of characters; even that of disinterestedness. 40.—Interest blinds some and makes some see. 41.—Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things. 42.—We have not enough strength to follow all our reason. 43.—A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavours to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another. 44.—Strength and weakness of mind are mis-named; they are really only the good or happy arrangement of our bodily organs. 45.—The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune. 46.—The attachment or indifference which philosophers have shown to life is only the style of their self love, about which we can no more dispute than

of that of the palate or of the choice of colours. 47.—Our temper sets a price upon every gift that we receive from fortune. 48.—Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like. 49.—We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose. 50.—Those who think they have merit persuade themselves that they are honoured by being unhappy, in order to persuade others and themselves that they are worthy to be the butt of fortune. [“Ambition has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is{, that where} we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other.” —Burke, {On the Sublime and Beautiful, (1756), Part I, Sect. XVII}.] {The translators’ incorrectly cite Speech on Conciliation with America. Also, Burke does not actually write “Ambition has been …”, he writes “It has been …” when speaking of ambition.} 51.—Nothing should so much diminish the satisfaction which we feel with ourselves as seeing that we disapprove at one time of that which we approve of at another. 52.—Whatever difference there appears in our fortunes, there is nevertheless a certain compensation of good and evil which renders them equal. 53.—Whatever great advantages nature may give, it is not she alone, but fortune also that makes the hero. 54.—The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at

that distinction which they could not gain by riches. [“It is always easy as well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.” —Gibbon, Decline And Fall, Chap. 15.] 55.—The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world. 56.—To establish ourselves in the world we do everything to appear as if we were established. 57.—Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance. 58.—It would seem that our actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which they owe a great part of the blame or praise which is given them. 59.—There are no accidents so unfortunate from which skilful men will not draw some advantage, nor so fortunate that foolish men will not turn them to their hurt. 60.—Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles. 61.—The happiness or unhappiness of men depends no less upon their dispositions than their fortunes. [“Still to ourselves in every place consigned Our own felicity we make or find.” Goldsmith, Traveller, 431.] 62.—Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.

63.—The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation. 64.—Truth does not do as much good in the world, as its counterfeits do evil. 65.—There is no praise we have not lavished upon Prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most trifling event. [The author corrected this maxim several times, in 1665 it is No. 75; 1666, No. 66; 1671-5, No. 65; in the last edition it stands as at present. In the first he quotes Juvenal, Sat. X., line 315. “Nullum numen habes si sit Prudentia, nos te; Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus.” Applying to Prudence what Juvenal does to Fortune, and with much greater force.] 66.—A clever man ought to so regulate his interests that each will fall in due order. Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest. 67.—What grace is to the body good sense is to the mind. 68.—It is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love—plus many mysteries. [“Love is the love of one {singularly,} with desire to be singularly beloved.” —Hobbes {Leviathan, (1651), Part I, Chapter VI}.] {Two notes about this quotation: (1) the translators’ mistakenly have “singularity” for the first “singularly” and (2) Hobbes does not actually write “Love is the …” —he writes “Love of one …” under the heading “The passion of Love.”} 69.—If there is a pure love, exempt from the mixture of our other passions, it is that which is concealed at the bottom of the heart and of which even

ourselves are ignorant. 70.—There is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor feign it where it does not. 71.—There are few people who would not be ashamed of being beloved when they love no longer. 72.—If we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather resembles hatred than friendship. 73.—We may find women who have never indulged in an intrigue, but it is rare to find those who have intrigued but once. [“Yet there are some, they say, who have had {None}; But those who have, ne’er end with only one}.” {—Lord Byron,} Don Juan, {Canto} iii., stanza 4.] 74.—There is only one sort of love, but there are a thousand different copies. 75.—Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear. [So Lord Byron {Stanzas, (1819), stanza 3} says of Love— “Like chiefs of faction, His life is action.”] 76.—There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it, few persons have seen it. [“Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art— An unseen seraph, we believe in thee— A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,— But never yet hath seen, nor e’er shall see The naked eye, thy form as it should be.” {—Lord Byron,} Childe Harold, {Canto} iv., stanza 121.] 77.—Love lends its name to an infinite number of engagements

(Commerces) which are attributed to it, but with which it has no more concern than the Doge has with all that is done in Venice. 78.—The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice. 79.—Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself. 80.—What renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of the mind. 81.—We can love nothing but what agrees with us, and we can only follow our taste or our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves; nevertheless it is only by that preference that friendship can be true and perfect. 82.—Reconciliation with our enemies is but a desire to better our condition, a weariness of war, the fear of some unlucky accident. [“Thus terminated that famous war of the Fronde. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld desired peace because of his dangerous wounds and ruined castles, which had made him dread even worse events. On the other side the Queen, who had shown herself so ungrateful to her too ambitious friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of their resentment. ‘I wish,’ said she, ‘it were always night, because daylight shows me so many who have betrayed me.’” —Memoires De Madame De Motteville, Tom. IV., p. 60. Another proof that although these maxims are in some cases of universal application, they were based entirely on the experience of the age in which the author lived.] 83.—What men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours—in fact it is but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something. 84.—It is more disgraceful to distrust than to be deceived by our friends. 85.—We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our

hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive. 86.—Our distrust of another justifies his deceit. 87.—Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aimé Martin, “Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise.” Yet we have scriptural authority for it: “Deceiving and being deceived.” —2 TIM. iii. 13.] 88.—Self love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them, and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us. 89.—Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment. 90.—In the intercourse of life, we please more by our faults than by our good qualities. 91.—The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object. 92.—To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him. [That is, they cured him. The madman was Thrasyllus, son of Pythodorus. His brother Crito cured him, when he infinitely regretted the time of his more pleasant madness.—See Aelian, Var. Hist. iv. 25. So Horace— ——————“Pol, me occidistis, amici, Non servastis,” ait, “cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.” HOR. EP. ii—2, 138, of the madman who was cured of a pleasant lunacy.]

93.—Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples. 94.—Great names degrade instead of elevating those who know not how to sustain them. 95.—The test of extraordinary merit is to see those who envy it the most yet obliged to praise it. 96.—A man is perhaps ungrateful, but often less chargeable with ingratitude than his benefactor is. 97.—We are deceived if we think that mind and judgment are two different matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind. This light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment. 98.—Everyone praises his heart, none dare praise their understanding. 99.—Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts. 100.—Gallantry of mind is saying the most empty things in an agreeable manner. 101.—Ideas often flash across our minds more complete than we could make them after much labour. 102.—The head is ever the dupe of the heart. [A feeble imitation of that great thought “All folly comes from the heart.” —Aimé Martin. But Bonhome, in his L’art De Penser, says “Plusieurs diraient en période quarré que quelques reflexions que fasse l’esprit et quelques resolutions qu’il prenne pour corriger ses travers le premier sentiment du coeur renverse tous ses projets. Mais il n’appartient qu’a M. de la Rochefoucauld de dire tout en un mot que l’esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur.”]

103.—Those who know their minds do not necessarily know their hearts. 104.—Men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly but at a distance. 105.—A man for whom accident discovers sense, is not a rational being. A man only is so who understands, who distinguishes, who tests it. 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. 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 infection 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 abandoning 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 burden they add to their beauty. 205.—Virtue in woman is often the love of reputation 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 distasteful 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 concealing 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 surprising 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 Machiavel, 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 instruction?” —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 beginning to fail. 223.—Gratitude is as the good faith of merchants: it holds commerce together; and we do not pay because 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 cannot thereby flatter themselves that they are grateful. 225.—What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, 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 obligation 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 miserable, 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 hypocrisy. 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 imposes 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 showing 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 affliction 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 ignorance 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 tenderness 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 delicate 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 generally ’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 conceal 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 ambition, that despises small to run after greater interest. 247.—The fidelity of most men is merely an invention 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 devices 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 business.” —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 appearance 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.” —Shaftesbury, 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 knowledge than a man was worth, and that with all its pretensions 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 happier 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 inspire 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 himself{;} and therefore is called compassion.” —Hobbes’ Leviathan{, (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; imperceptibly 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. 268.—We credit judges with the meanest motives, and yet we desire our reputation and fame should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all, either from their jealousy or pre-occupation or want of intelligence, opposed to us—and yet ’tis only to make these men decide in our favour that we peril in so many ways both our peace and our life. 269.—No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. 270.—One honour won is a surety for more. 271.—Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason. [“The best of life is but intoxication.” —{Lord Byron,} Don Juan{, Canto II, stanza 179}. In the 1st Edition, 1665, the maxim finishes with —“it is the fever of health, the folly of reason.”] 272.—Nothing should so humiliate men who have deserved great praise, as the care they have taken to acquire it by the smallest means. 273.—There are persons of whom the world approves who have no merit beyond the vices they use in the affairs of life. 274.—The beauty of novelty is to love as the flower to the fruit; it lends a lustre which is easily lost, but which never returns.

275.—Natural goodness, which boasts of being so apparent, is often smothered by the least interest. 276.—Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire. 277.—Women often think they love when they do not love. The business of a love affair, the emotion of mind that sentiment induces, the natural bias towards the pleasure of being loved, the difficulty of refusing, persuades them that they have real passion when they have but flirtation. [“And if in fact she takes a {‘}Grande Passion{’}, It is a very serious thing indeed: Nine times in ten ’tis but caprice or fashion, Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash on. Or wish to make a rival’s bosom bleed: But the {tenth} instance will be a tornado, For there’s no saying what they will or may do.” {—Lord Byron,} Don Juan, canto xii. stanza 77.] 278.—What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honour of succeeding in that which they have undertaken. 279.—When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit. 280.—The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established. 281.—Pride, which inspires, often serves to moderate envy. 282.—Some disguised lies so resemble truth, that we should judge badly were we not deceived.

283.—Sometimes there is not less ability in knowing how to use than in giving good advice. 284.—There are wicked people who would be much less dangerous if they were wholly without goodness. 285.—Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise. 286.—It is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really ceased to love. 287.—Fertility of mind does not furnish us with so many resources on the same matter, as the lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each thing our imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning which is the best. 288.—There are matters and maladies which at certain times remedies only serve to make worse; true skill consists in knowing when it is dangerous to use them. 289.—Affected simplicity is refined imposture. [Domitianus simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine studium litterarum et amorem carminum simulabat quo velaret animum et fratris aemulationi subduceretur.—Tacitus, Ann. iv.] 290.—There are as many errors of temper as of mind. 291.—Man’s merit, like the crops, has its season. 292.—One may say of temper as of many buildings; it has divers aspects, some agreeable, others disagreeable. 293.—Moderation cannot claim the merit of opposing and overcoming Ambition: they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and sloth of the soul, Ambition its activity and heat.

294.—We always like those who admire us, we do not always like those whom we admire. 295.—It is well that we know not all our wishes. 296.—It is difficult to love those we do not esteem, but it is no less so to love those whom we esteem much more than ourselves. 297.—Bodily temperaments have a common course and rule which imperceptibly affect our will. They advance in combination, and successively exercise a secret empire over us, so that, without our perceiving it, they become a great part of all our actions. 298.—The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits. [Hence the common proverb “Gratitude is merely a lively sense of favors to come.”] 299.—Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many people show gratitude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not show ingratitude for great favours. 300.—There are follies as catching as infections. 301.—Many people despise, but few know how to bestow wealth. 302.—Only in things of small value we usually are bold enough not to trust to appearances. 303.—Whatever good quality may be imputed to us, we ourselves find nothing new in it. 304.—We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore. 305.—Interest which is accused of all our misdeeds often should be praised for our good deeds.

306.—We find very few ungrateful people when we are able to confer favours. 307.—It is as proper to be boastful alone as it is ridiculous to be so in company. 308.—Moderation is made a virtue to limit the ambition of the great; to console ordinary people for their small fortune and equally small ability. 309.—There are persons fated to be fools, who commit follies not only by choice, but who are forced by fortune to do so. 310.—Sometimes there are accidents in our life the skilful extrication from which demands a little folly. 311.—If there be men whose folly has never appeared, it is because it has never been closely looked for. 312.—Lovers are never tired of each other,—they always speak of themselves. 313.—How is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person? [“Old men who yet retain the memory of things past, and forget how often they have told them, are most tedious companions.” —Montaigne, {Essays, Book I, Chapter IX}.] 314.—The extreme delight we take in talking of ourselves should warn us that it is not shared by those who listen. 315.—What commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of ourselves. 316.—Weak persons cannot be sincere.

317.—’Tis a small misfortune to oblige an ungrateful man; but it is unbearable to be obliged by a scoundrel. 318.—We may find means to cure a fool of his folly, but there are none to set straight a cross-grained spirit. 319.—If we take the liberty to dwell on their faults we cannot long preserve the feelings we should hold towards our friends and benefactors. 320.—To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is but to reproach them with impunity. [“Praise undeserved is satire in disguise,” quoted by Pope from a poem which has not survived, “The Garland,” by Mr. Broadhurst. “In some cases exaggerated or inappropriate praise becomes the most severe satire.” — Scott, Woodstock.] 321.—We are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire. 322.—Those only are despicable who fear to be despised. 323.—Our wisdom is no less at the mercy of Fortune than our goods. 324.—There is more self-love than love in jealousy. 325.—We often comfort ourselves by the weakness of evils, for which reason has not the strength to console us. 326.—Ridicule dishonours more than dishonour itself. [“No,” says a commentator, “Ridicule may do harm, but it cannot dishonour; it is vice which confers dishonour.”] 327.—We own to small faults to persuade others that we have not great ones. 328.—Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.

329.—We believe, sometimes, that we hate flattery—we only dislike the method. [“{But} when I tell him he hates flatter{ers}, He says he does, being then most flattered.” Shakespeare, Julius Caesar{, Act II, Scene I, Decius}.] 330.—We pardon in the degree that we love. 331.—It is more difficult to be faithful to a mistress when one is happy, than when we are ill-treated by her. [Si qua volet regnare diu contemnat amantem. —Ovid, Amores, ii. 19.] 332.—Women do not know all their powers of flirtation. 333.—Women cannot be completely severe unless they hate. 334.—Women can less easily resign flirtations than love. 335.—In love deceit almost always goes further than mistrust. 336.—There is a kind of love, the excess of which forbids jealousy. 337.—There are certain good qualities as there are senses, and those who want them can neither perceive nor understand them. 338.—When our hatred is too bitter it places us below those whom we hate. 339.—We only appreciate our good or evil in proportion to our self-love. 340.—The wit of most women rather strengthens their folly than their reason. [“Women have an entertaining tattle, and sometimes wit, but for solid reasoning and good sense I never knew one in my life that had it, and who reasoned and acted consequentially for four and twenty hours together.” — Lord Chesterfield, Letter 129.]

341.—The heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age. 342.—The accent of our native country dwells in the heart and mind as well as on the tongue. 343.—To be a great man one should know how to profit by every phase of fortune. 344.—Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers. 345.—Opportunity makes us known to others, but more to ourselves. 346.—If a woman’s temper is beyond control there can be no control of the mind or heart. 347.—We hardly find any persons of good sense, save those who agree with us. [“That was excellently observed, say I, when I read an author when his opinion agrees with mine.” —Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects.] 348.—When one loves one doubts even what one most believes. 349.—The greatest miracle of love is to eradicate flirtation. 350.—Why we hate with so much bitterness those who deceive us is because they think themselves more clever than we are. [“I could pardon all his (Louis XI.’s) deceit, but I cannot forgive his supposing me capable of the gross folly of being duped by his professions.” —Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward.] 351.—We have much trouble to break with one, when we no longer are in love. 352.—We almost always are bored with persons with whom we should not be bored.

353.—A gentleman may love like a lunatic, but not like a beast. 354.—There are certain defects which well mounted glitter like virtue itself. 355.—Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret. 356.—Usually we only praise heartily those who admire us. 357.—Little minds are too much wounded by little things; great minds see all and are not even hurt. 358.—Humility is the true proof of Christian virtues; without it we retain all our faults, and they are only covered by pride to hide them from others, and often from ourselves. 359.—Infidelities should extinguish love, and we ought not to be jealous when we have cause to be so. No persons escape causing jealousy who are worthy of exciting it. 360.—We are more humiliated by the least infidelity towards us, than by our greatest towards others. 361.—Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it. 362.—Most women do not grieve so much for the death of their lovers for love’s-sake, as to show they were worthy of being beloved. 363.—The evils we do to others give us less pain than those we do to ourselves. 364.—We well know that it is bad taste to talk of our wives; but we do not so well know that it is the same to speak of ourselves. 365.—There are virtues which degenerate into vices when they arise from Nature, and others which when acquired are never perfect. For example, reason must teach us to manage our estate and our confidence, while Nature should have given us goodness and valour.

366.—However we distrust the sincerity of those whom we talk with, we always believe them more sincere with us than with others. 367.—There are few virtuous women who are not tired of their part. [“Every woman is at heart a rake.” —Pope. Moral Essays, ii.] 368.—The greater number of good women are like concealed treasures, safe as no one has searched for them. 369.—The violences we put upon ourselves to escape love are often more cruel than the cruelty of those we love. 370.—There are not many cowards who know the whole of their fear. 371.—It is generally the fault of the loved one not to perceive when love ceases. 372.—Most young people think they are natural when they are only boorish and rude. 373.—Some tears after having deceived others deceive ourselves. 374.—If we think we love a woman for love of herself we are greatly deceived. 375.—Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them. 376.—Envy is destroyed by true friendship, flirtation by true love. 377.—The greatest mistake of penetration is not to have fallen short, but to have gone too far. 378.—We may bestow advice, but we cannot inspire the conduct. 379.—As our merit declines so also does our taste. 380.—Fortune makes visible our virtues or our vices, as light does objects.

381.—The struggle we undergo to remain faithful to one we love is little better than infidelity. 382.—Our actions are like the rhymed ends of blank verses (Bouts-Rimés) where to each one puts what construction he pleases. [The Bouts-Rimés was a literary game popular in the 17th and 18th centuries—the rhymed words at the end of a line being given for others to fill up. Thus Horace Walpole being given, “brook, why, crook, I,” returned the burlesque verse— “I sits with my toes in a Brook, And if any one axes me Why? I gies ’em a rap with my Crook, ’Tis constancy makes me, ses I.”] 383.—The desire of talking about ourselves, and of putting our faults in the light we wish them to be seen, forms a great part of our sincerity. 384.—We should only be astonished at still being able to be astonished. 385.—It is equally as difficult to be contented when one has too much or too little love. 386.—No people are more often wrong than those who will not allow themselves to be wrong. 387.—A fool has not stuff in him to be good. 388.—If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter. 389.—What makes the vanity of others unsupportable is that it wounds our own. 390.—We give up more easily our interest than our taste. 391.—Fortune appears so blind to none as to those to whom she has done

no good. 392.—We should manage fortune like our health, enjoy it when it is good, be patient when it is bad, and never resort to strong remedies but in an extremity. 393.—Awkwardness sometimes disappears in the camp, never in the court. 394.—A man is often more clever than one other, but not than all others. [“Singuli decipere ac decipi possunt, nemo omnes, omnes neminem fefellerunt.” —Pliny{ the Younger, Panegyricus, LXII}.] 395.—We are often less unhappy at being deceived by one we loved, than on being deceived. 396.—We keep our first lover for a long time—if we do not get a second. 397.—We have not the courage to say generally that we have no faults, and that our enemies have no good qualities; but in fact we are not far from believing so. 398.—Of all our faults that which we most readily admit is idleness: we believe that it makes all virtues ineffectual, and that without utterly destroying, it at least suspends their operation. 399.—There is a kind of greatness which does not depend upon fortune: it is a certain manner what distinguishes us, and which seems to destine us for great things; it is the value we insensibly set upon ourselves; it is by this quality that we gain the deference of other men, and it is this which commonly raises us more above them, than birth, rank, or even merit itself. 400.—There may be talent without position, but there is no position without some kind of talent. 401.—Rank is to merit what dress is to a pretty woman. 402.—What we find the least of in flirtation is love.

403.—Fortune sometimes uses our faults to exalt us, and there are tiresome people whose deserts would be ill rewarded if we did not desire to purchase their absence. 404.—It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do. 405.—We reach quite inexperienced the different stages of life, and often, in spite of the number of our years, we lack experience. [“To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship which illumine only the track it has passed.” —Coleridge.] 406.—Flirts make it a point of honour to be jealous of their lovers, to conceal their envy of other women. 407.—It may well be that those who have trapped us by their tricks do not seem to us so foolish as we seem to ourselves when trapped by the tricks of others. 408.—The most dangerous folly of old persons who have been loveable is to forget that they are no longer so. [“Every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome. The suspicion of age no woman, let her be ever so old, forgives.” —Lord Chesterfield, Letter 129.] 409.—We should often be ashamed of our very best actions if the world only saw the motives which caused them. 410.—The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our faults to a friend, but to show him his own. 411.—We have few faults which are not far more excusable than the means we adopt to hide them. 412.—Whatever disgrace we may have deserved, it is almost always in our

power to re-establish our character. [“This is hardly a period at which the most irregular character may not be redeemed. The mistakes of one sin find a retreat in patriotism, those of the other in devotion.” —Junius, Letter To The King.] 413.—A man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit. [According to Segrais this maxim was a hit at Racine and Boileau, who, despising ordinary conversation, talked incessantly of literature; but there is some doubt as to Segrais’ statement.—Aimé Martin.] 414.—Idiots and lunatics see only their own wit. 415.—Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity. 416.—The vivacity which increases in old age is not far removed from folly. [“How ill {white} hairs become {a} fool and jester.” — {Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II, Act. V, Scene V, King}. “Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can grey hairs make folly venerable, and is there no period to be reserved for meditation or retirement.” — Junius, To the Duke of Bedford, 19th Sept. 1769.] 417.—In love the quickest is always the best cure. 418.—Young women who do not want to appear flirts, and old men who do not want to appear ridiculous, should not talk of love as a matter wherein they can have any interest. 419.—We may seem great in a post beneath our capacity, but we oftener seem little in a post above it. 420.—We often believe we have constancy in misfortune when we have nothing but debasement, and we suffer misfortunes without regarding them as cowards who let themselves be killed from fear of defending themselves. 421.—Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

422.—All passions make us commit some faults, love alone makes us ridiculous. [“In love we all are fools alike.” —Gay{, The Beggar’s Opera, (1728), Act III, Scene I, Lucy}.] 423.—Few know how to be old. 424.—We often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy. 425.—Penetration has a spice of divination in it which tickles our vanity more than any other quality of the mind. 426.—The charm of novelty and old custom, however opposite to each other, equally blind us to the faults of our friends. [“Two things the most opposite blind us equally, custom and novelty.” — La Bruyère, Des Judgements.] 427.—Most friends sicken us of friendship, most devotees of devotion. 428.—We easily forgive in our friends those faults we do not perceive. 429.—Women who love, pardon more readily great indiscretions than little infidelities. 430.—In the old age of love as in life we still survive for the evils, though no longer for the pleasures. [“The youth of friendship is better than its old age.” —Hazlitt’s Characteristics, 229.] 431.—Nothing prevents our being unaffected so much as our desire to seem so. 432.—To praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in them. 433.—The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born

without envy. [“Nemo alienae virtuti invidet qui satis confidet suae.” —Cicero in Marc Ant.] 434.—When our friends have deceived us we owe them but indifference to the tokens of their friendship, yet for their misfortunes we always owe them pity. 435.—Luck and temper rule the world. 436.—It is far easier to know men than to know man. 437.—We should not judge of a man’s merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them. 438.—There is a certain lively gratitude which not only releases us from benefits received, but which also, by making a return to our friends as payment, renders them indebted to us. [“And understood not that a grateful mind, By owing owes not, but is at once Indebted and discharged.” Milton. Paradise Lost.] 439.—We should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired. 440.—The cause why the majority of women are so little given to friendship is, that it is insipid after having felt love. [“Those who have experienced a great passion neglect friendship, and those who have united themselves to friendship have nought to do with love.” —La Bruyère. Du Coeur.] 441.—As in friendship so in love, we are often happier from ignorance than from knowledge. 442.—We try to make a virtue of vices we are loth to correct.

443.—The most violent passions give some respite, but vanity always disturbs us. 444.—Old fools are more foolish than young fools. [“Malvolio. Infirmity{,} that decays the wise{,} doth eve{r} make the better fool. Clown. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity{,} for the better increasing of your folly.” —Shakespeare. Twelfth Night{, Act I, Scene V}.] 445.—Weakness is more hostile to virtue than vice. 446.—What makes the grief of shame and jealousy so acute is that vanity cannot aid us in enduring them. 447.—Propriety is the least of all laws, but the most obeyed. [Honour has its supreme laws, to which education is bound to conform. … Those things which honour forbids are more rigorously forbidden when the laws do not concur in the prohibition, and those it commands are more strongly insisted upon when they happen not to be commanded by law. — Montesquieu, {The Spirit Of Laws,} b. 4, c. ii.] 448.—A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind. 449.—When fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it. 450.—Our pride is often increased by what we retrench from our other faults. [“The loss of sensual pleasures was supplied and compensated by spiritual pride.” —Gibbon. Decline and Fall, chap. xv.] 451.—No fools so wearisome as those who have some wit. 452.—No one believes that in every respect he is behind the man he considers the ablest in the world.

453.—In great matters we should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilise those that offer themselves. [Yet Lord Bacon says “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” —Essays, {(1625), “Of Ceremonies and Respects”}] 454.—There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us. 455.—However disposed the world may be to judge wrongly, it far oftener favours false merit than does justice to true. 456.—Sometimes we meet a fool with wit, never one with discretion. 457.—We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not. 458.—Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves. 459.—There are many remedies to cure love, yet none are infallible. 460.—It would be well for us if we knew all our passions make us do. 461.—Age is a tyrant who forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of youth. 462.—The same pride which makes us blame faults from which we believe ourselves free causes us to despise the good qualities we have not. 463.—There is often more pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies’ miseries; it is to show how superior we are to them, that we bestow on them the sign of our compassion. 464.—There exists an excess of good and evil which surpasses our comprehension. 465.—Innocence is most fortunate if it finds the same protection as crime.

466.—Of all the violent passions the one that becomes a woman best is love. 467.—Vanity makes us sin more against our taste than reason. 468.—Some bad qualities form great talents. 469.—We never desire earnestly what we desire in reason. 470.—All our qualities are uncertain and doubtful, both the good as well as the bad, and nearly all are creatures of opportunities. 471.—In their first passion women love their lovers, in all the others they love love. [“In her first passion woman loves her lover, In all her others what she loves is love.” {—Lord Byron, }Don Juan, Canto iii., stanza 3. “We truly love once, the first time; the subsequent passions are more or less involuntary.” La Bruyère: Du Coeur.] 472.—Pride as the other passions has its follies. We are ashamed to own we are jealous, and yet we plume ourselves in having been and being able to be so. 473.—However rare true love is, true friendship is rarer. [“It is more common to see perfect love than real friendship.” —La Bruyère. Du Coeur.] 474.—There are few women whose charm survives their beauty. 475.—The desire to be pitied or to be admired often forms the greater part of our confidence. 476.—Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. 477.—The same firmness that enables us to resist love enables us to make our resistance durable and lasting. So weak persons who are always excited by passions are seldom really possessed of any.

478.—Fancy does not enable us to invent so many different contradictions as there are by nature in every heart. 479.—It is only people who possess firmness who can possess true gentleness. In those who appear gentle it is generally only weakness, which is readily converted into harshness. 480.—Timidity is a fault which is dangerous to blame in those we desire to cure of it. 481.—Nothing is rarer than true good nature, those who think they have it are generally only pliant or weak. 482.—The mind attaches itself by idleness and habit to whatever is easy or pleasant. This habit always places bounds to our knowledge, and no one has ever yet taken the pains to enlarge and expand his mind to the full extent of its capacities. 483.—Usually we are more satirical from vanity than malice. 484.—When the heart is still disturbed by the relics of a passion it is proner to take up a new one than when wholly cured. 485.—Those who have had great passions often find all their lives made miserable in being cured of them. 486.—More persons exist without self-love than without envy. [“I do not believe that there is a human creature in his senses arrived at maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by this passion (envy) in good earnest, and yet I never met with any who dared own he was guilty of it, but in jest.” —Mandeville: Fable of the Bees; Remark N.] 487.—We have more idleness in the mind than in the body. 488.—The calm or disturbance of our mind does not depend so much on what we regard as the more important things of life, as in a judicious or

injudicious arrangement of the little things of daily occurrence. 489.—However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her. 490.—We often go from love to ambition, but we never return from ambition to love. [“Men commence by love, finish by ambition, and do not find a quieter seat while they remain there.” —La Bruyère: Du Coeur.] 491.—Extreme avarice is nearly always mistaken, there is no passion which is oftener further away from its mark, nor upon which the present has so much power to the prejudice of the future. 492.—Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations, others mistake great future advantages for small present interests. [Aimé Martin says, “The author here confuses greediness, the desire and avarice—passions which probably have a common origin, but produce different results. The greedy man is nearly always desirous to possess, and often foregoes great future advantages for small present interests. The avaricious man, on the other hand, mistakes present advantages for the great expectations of the future. Both desire to possess and enjoy. But the miser possesses and enjoys nothing but the pleasure of possessing; he risks nothing, gives nothing, hopes nothing, his life is centred in his strong box, beyond that he has no want.”] 493.—It appears that men do not find they have enough faults, as they increase the number by certain peculiar qualities that they affect to assume, and which they cultivate with so great assiduity that at length they become natural faults, which they can no longer correct. 494.—What makes us see that men know their faults better than we imagine, is that they are never wrong when they speak of their conduct; the same self-love that usually blinds them enlightens them, and gives them

such true views as to make them suppress or disguise the smallest thing that might be censured. 495.—Young men entering life should be either shy or bold; a solemn and sedate manner usually degenerates into impertinence. 496.—Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. 497.—It is valueless to a woman to be young unless pretty, or to be pretty unless young. 498.—Some persons are so frivolous and fickle that they are as far removed from real defects as from substantial qualities. 499.—We do not usually reckon a woman’s first flirtation until she has had a second. 500.—Some people are so self-occupied that when in love they find a mode by which to be engrossed with the passion without being so with the person they love. 501.—Love, though so very agreeable, pleases more by its ways than by itself. 502.—A little wit with good sense bores less in the long run than much wit with ill nature. 503.—Jealousy is the worst of all evils, yet the one that is least pitied by those who cause it. 504.—Thus having treated of the hollowness of so many apparent virtues, it is but just to say something on the hollowness of the contempt for death. I allude to that contempt of death which the heathen boasted they derived from their unaided understanding, without the hope of a future state. There is a difference between meeting death with courage and despising it. The first is common enough, the last I think always feigned. Yet everything that could be has been written to persuade us that death is no evil, and the

weakest of men, equally with the bravest, have given many noble examples on which to found such an opinion, still I do not think that any man of good sense has ever yet believed in it. And the pains we take to persuade others as well as ourselves amply show that the task is far from easy. For many reasons we may be disgusted with life, but for none may we despise it. Not even those who commit suicide regard it as a light matter, and are as much alarmed and startled as the rest of the world if death meets them in a different way than the one they have selected. The difference we observe in the courage of so great a number of brave men, is from meeting death in a way different from what they imagined, when it shows itself nearer at one time than at another. Thus it ultimately happens that having despised death when they were ignorant of it, they dread it when they become acquainted with it. If we could avoid seeing it with all its surroundings, we might perhaps believe that it was not the greatest of evils. The wisest and bravest are those who take the best means to avoid reflecting on it, as every man who sees it in its real light regards it as dreadful. The necessity of dying created all the constancy of philosophers. They thought it but right to go with a good grace when they could not avoid going, and being unable to prolong their lives indefinitely, nothing remained but to build an immortal reputation, and to save from the general wreck all that could be saved. To put a good face upon it, let it suffice, not to say all that we think to ourselves, but rely more on our nature than on our fallible reason, which might make us think we could approach death with indifference. The glory of dying with courage, the hope of being regretted, the desire to leave behind us a good reputation, the assurance of being enfranchised from the miseries of life and being no longer dependent on the wiles of fortune, are resources which should not be passed over. But we must not regard them as infallible. They should affect us in the same proportion as a single shelter affects those who in war storm a fortress. At a distance they think it may afford cover, but when near they find it only a feeble protection. It is only deceiving ourselves to imagine that death, when near, will seem the same as at a distance, or that our feelings, which are merely weaknesses, are naturally so strong that they will not suffer in an attack of the rudest of trials. It is equally as absurd to try the effect of self-esteem and to think it will enable us to count as naught what will of necessity destroy it. And the mind in which we trust to find so many resources will be far too weak in the

struggle to persuade us in the way we wish. For it is this which betrays us so frequently, and which, instead of filling us with contempt of death, serves but to show us all that is frightful and fearful. The most it can do for us is to persuade us to avert our gaze and fix it on other objects. Cato and Brutus each selected noble ones. A lackey sometime ago contented himself by dancing on the scaffold when he was about to be broken on the wheel. So however diverse the motives they but realize the same result. For the rest it is a fact that whatever difference there may be between the peer and the peasant, we have constantly seen both the one and the other meet death with the same composure. Still there is always this difference, that the contempt the peer shows for death is but the love of fame which hides death from his sight; in the peasant it is but the result of his limited vision that hides from him the extent of the evil, and leaves him free to reflect on other things.

FIRST SUPPLEMENT [The following reflections are extracted from the first two editions of La Rochefoucauld, having been suppressed by the author in succeeding issues.] I.—Self-love is the love of self, and of all things for self. It makes men selfworshippers, and if fortune permits them, causes them to tyrannize over others; it is never quiet when out of itself, and only rests upon other subjects as a bee upon flowers, to extract from them its proper food. Nothing is so headstrong as its desires, nothing so well concealed as its designs, nothing so skilful as its management; its suppleness is beyond description; its changes surpass those of the metamorphoses, its refinements those of chemistry. We can neither plumb the depths nor pierce the shades of its recesses. Therein it is hidden from the most far-seeing eyes, therein it takes a thousand imperceptible folds. There it is often to itself invisible; it there conceives, there nourishes and rears, without being aware of it, numberless loves and hatreds, some so monstrous that when they are brought to light it disowns them, and cannot resolve to avow them. In the night which covers it are born the ridiculous persuasions it has of itself, thence come its errors, its ignorance, its silly mistakes; thence it is led to believe that its passions which sleep are dead, and to think that it has lost all appetite for that of which it is sated. But this thick darkness which conceals it from itself does not hinder it from seeing that perfectly which is out of itself; and in this it resembles our eyes which behold all, and yet cannot set their own forms. In fact, in great concerns and important matters when the violence of its desires summons all its attention, it sees, feels, hears, imagines, suspects, penetrates, divines all: so that we might think that each of its passions had a magic power proper to it. Nothing is so close and strong as its attachments, which, in sight of the extreme misfortunes which threaten it, it vainly attempts to break. Yet sometimes it effects that without trouble and quickly, which it failed to do with its whole power and in the course of years, whence we may fairly conclude that it is by itself that its desires are inflamed, rather than by the beauty and merit of its objects, that its own

taste embellishes and heightens them; that it is itself the game it pursues, and that it follows eagerly when it runs after that upon which itself is eager. It is made up of contraries. It is imperious and obedient, sincere and false, piteous and cruel, timid and bold. It has different desires according to the diversity of temperaments, which turn and fix it sometimes upon riches, sometimes on pleasures. It changes according to our age, our fortunes, and our hopes; it is quite indifferent whether it has many or one, because it can split itself into many portions, and unite in one as it pleases. It is inconstant, and besides the changes which arise from strange causes it has an infinity born of itself, and of its own substance. It is inconstant through inconstancy, of lightness, love, novelty, lassitude and distaste. It is capricious, and one sees it sometimes work with intense eagerness and with incredible labour to obtain things of little use to it which are even hurtful, but which it pursues because it wishes for them. It is silly, and often throws its whole application on the utmost frivolities. It finds all its pleasure in the dullest matters, and places its pride in the most contemptible. It is seen in all states of life, and in all conditions; it lives everywhere and upon everything; it subsists on nothing; it accommodates itself either to things or to the want of them; it goes over to those who are at war with it, enters into their designs, and, this is wonderful, it, with them, hates even itself; it conspires for its own loss, it works towards its own ruin—in fact, caring only to exist, and providing that it may be, it will be its own enemy! We must therefore not be surprised if it is sometimes united to the rudest austerity, and if it enters so boldly into partnership to destroy her, because when it is rooted out in one place it reestablishes itself in another. When it fancies that it abandons its pleasure it merely changes or suspends its enjoyment. When even it is conquered in its full flight, we find that it triumphs in its own defeat. Here then is the picture of self-love whereof the whole of our life is but one long agitation. The sea is its living image; and in the flux and reflux of its continuous waves there is a faithful expression of the stormy succession of its thoughts and of its eternal motion. (Edition of 1665, No. 1.) II.—Passions are only the different degrees of the heat or coldness of the blood. (1665, No. 13.) III.—Moderation in good fortune is but apprehension of the shame which

follows upon haughtiness, or a fear of losing what we have. (1665, No. 18.) IV.—Moderation is like temperance in eating; we could eat more but we fear to make ourselves ill. (1665, No. 21.) V.—Everybody finds that to abuse in another which he finds worthy of abuse in himself. (1665, No. 33.) VI.—Pride, as if tired of its artifices and its different metamorphoses, after having solely filled the divers parts of the comedy of life, exhibits itself with its natural face, and is discovered by haughtiness; so much so that we may truly say that haughtiness is but the flash and open declaration of pride. (1665, No. 37.) VII.—One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable. (1665, No. 53.) VIII.—When we do not find peace of mind (REPOS) in ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere. (1665, No. 53.) IX.—One should be able to answer for one’s fortune, so as to be able to answer for what we shall do. (1665, No. 70.) X.—Love is to the soul of him who loves, what the soul is to the body which it animates. (1665, No. 77.) XI.—As one is never at liberty to love or to cease from loving, the lover cannot with justice complain of the inconstancy of his mistress, nor she of the fickleness of her lover. (1665, No. 81.) XII.—Justice in those judges who are moderate is but a love of their place. (1665, No. 89.) XIII.—When we are tired of loving we are quite content if our mistress should become faithless, to loose us from our fidelity. (1665, No. 85.) XIV.—The first impulse of joy which we feel at the happiness of our friends

arises neither from our natural goodness nor from friendship; it is the result of self-love, which flatters us with being lucky in our own turn, or in reaping something from the good fortune of our friends. (1665, No. 97.) XV.—In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us. (1665, No. 99.) [This gave occasion to Swift’s celebrated “Verses on his own Death.” The four first are quoted opposite the title, then follow these lines:— “This maxim more than all the rest, Is thought too base for human breast; In all distresses of our friends, We first consult our private ends; While nature kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.” See also Chesterfield’s defence of this in his 129th letter; “they who know the deception and wickedness of the human heart will not be either romantic or blind enough to deny what Rochefoucauld and Swift have affirmed as a general truth.”] XVI.—How shall we hope that another person will keep our secret if we do not keep it ourselves. (1665, No. 100.) XVII.—As if it was not sufficient that self-love should have the power to change itself, it has added that of changing other objects, and this it does in a very astonishing manner; for not only does it so well disguise them that it is itself deceived, but it even changes the state and nature of things. Thus, when a female is adverse to us, and she turns her hate and persecution against us, self-love pronounces on her actions with all the severity of justice; it exaggerates the faults till they are enormous, and looks at her good qualities in so disadvantageous a light that they become more displeasing than her faults. If however the same female becomes favourable to us, or certain of our interests reconcile her to us, our sole self interest gives her back the lustre which our hatred deprived her of. The bad qualities become effaced, the good ones appear with a redoubled advantage; we even summon all our indulgence to justify the war she has made upon us. Now

although all passions prove this truth, that of love exhibits it most clearly; for we may see a lover moved with rage by the neglect or the infidelity of her whom he loves, and meditating the utmost vengeance that his passion can inspire. Nevertheless as soon as the sight of his beloved has calmed the fury of his movements, his passion holds that beauty innocent; he only accuses himself, he condemns his condemnations, and by the miraculous power of self-love, he whitens the blackest actions of his mistress, and takes from her all crime to lay it on himself. {No date or number is given for this maxim} XVIII.—There are none who press so heavily on others as the lazy ones, when they have satisfied their idleness, and wish to appear industrious. (1666, No. 91.) XIX.—The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it, it deprives us of knowledge of remedies which can solace our miseries and can cure our faults. (1665, No. 102.) XX.—One has never less reason than when one despairs of finding it in others. (1665, No. 103.) XXI.—Philosophers, and Seneca above all, have not diminished crimes by their precepts; they have only used them in the building up of pride. (1665, No. 105.) XXII.—It is a proof of little friendship not to perceive the growing coolness of that of our friends. (1666, No. 97.) XXIII.—The most wise may be so in indifferent and ordinary matters, but they are seldom so in their most serious affairs. (1665, No. 132.) XXIV.—The most subtle folly grows out of the most subtle wisdom. (1665, No. 134.) 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.) XXX.—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.) XXXI.—Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than the common, but those only who have greater designs. (1665, No. 161.) XXXII.—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 passages pointed out in Familiar Words.] XXXIII.—Natural ferocity makes fewer people cruel than self-love. (1665, No. 174.) XXXIV.—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.)

XXXV.—There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious by their brilliancy,2 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.) XXXVI.—One never finds in man good or evil in excess. (1665, No. 201.) XXXVII.—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.} XXXVIII.—The pomp of funerals concerns rather the vanity of the living, than the honour of the dead. (1665, No. 213.) XXXIX.—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 wishing 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 gratitude 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 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 noble 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 passions 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 passion we must add that idleness, like a beatitude 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 passion. Whence it is that bold and pushing 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 assured 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’ introduction states that the 1665 edition only had 316 maxims. In fact, the two maxims only appeared in the fourth of the first five editions (1674).} 2 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.

SECOND SUPPLEMENT REFLECTIONS, EXTRACTED FROM MS. LETTERS IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY3 LXVI.—Interest is the soul of self-love, in as much as when the body deprived of its soul is without sight, feeling or knowledge, without thought or movement, so self-love, riven so to speak from its interest, neither sees, nor hears, nor smells, nor moves; thus it is that the same man who will run over land and sea for his own interest becomes suddenly paralyzed when engaged for that of others; from this arises that sudden dulness and, as it were, death, with which we afflict those to whom we speak of our own matters; from this also their sudden resurrection when in our narrative we relate something concerning them; from this we find in our conversations and business that a man becomes dull or bright just as his own interest is near to him or distant from him. (Letter to Madame De Sablé, Ms., Fol. 211.) LXVII.—Why we cry out so much against maxims which lay bare the heart of man, is because we fear that our own heart shall be laid bare. (Maxim 103, MS., fol. 310.4) LXVIII.—Hope and fear are inseparable. (To Madame De Sablé, Ms., Fol. 222, MAX. 168.) LXIX.—It is a common thing to hazard life to escape dishonour; but, when this is done, the actor takes very little pain to make the enterprise succeed in which he is engaged, and certain it is that they who hazard their lives to take a city or to conquer a province are better officers, have more merit, and wider and more useful, views than they who merely expose themselves to vindicate their honour; it is very common to find people of the latter class, very rare to find those of the former. (Letter to M. Esprit, Ms., Fol. 173, MAX. 219.)

LXX.—The taste changes, but the will remains the same. (To Madame De Sablé, Fol. 223, Max. 252.) LXXI.—The power which women whom we love have over us is greater than that which we have over ourselves. (To the same, Ms., Fol. 211, Max. 259) LXXII.—That which makes us believe so easily that others have defects is that we all so easily believe what we wish. (To the same, Ms., Fol. 223, Max. 397.) LXXIII.—I am perfectly aware that good sense and fine wit are tedious to every age, but tastes are not always the same, and what is good at one time will not seem so at another. This makes me think that few persons know how to be old. (To the same, Fol. 202, Max. 423.) LXXIV.—God has permitted, to punish man for his original sin, that he should be so fond of his self-love, that he should be tormented by it in all the actions of his life. (Ms., Fol. 310, Max. 494.) LXXV.—And so far it seems to me the philosophy of a lacquey can go; I believe that all gaity in that state of life is very doubtful indeed. (To Madame De Sablé, Fol. 161, Max. 504.) [In the maxim cited the author relates how a footman about to be broken on the wheel danced on the scaffold. He seems to think that in his day the life of such servants was so miserable that their merriment was very doubtful.] 3 A La Bibliotheque Du Roi, it is difficult at present (June 1871) to assign a name to the magnificent collection of books in Paris, the property of the nation. 4 The reader will recognise in these extracts portions of the Maxims previously given, sometimes the author has carefully polished them; at other times the words are identical. Our numbers will indicate where they are to be found in the foregoing collection.

THIRD SUPPLEMENT [The fifty following Maxims are taken from the Sixth Edition of the Pensées De La Rochefoucauld, published by Claude Barbin, in 1693, more than twelve years after the death of the author (17th May, 1680). The reader will find some repetitions, but also some very valuable maxims.] LXXVI.—Many persons wish to be devout; but no one wishes to be humble. LXXVII.—The labour of the body frees us from the pains of the mind, and thus makes the poor happy. LXXVIII.—True penitential sorrows (mortifications) are those which are not known, vanity renders the others easy enough. LXXIX.—Humility is the altar upon which God wishes that we should offer him his sacrifices. LXXX.—Few things are needed to make a wise man happy; nothing can make a fool content; that is why most men are miserable. LXXXI.—We trouble ourselves less to become happy, than to make others believe we are so. LXXXII.—It is more easy to extinguish the first desire than to satisfy those which follow. LXXXIII.—Wisdom is to the soul what health is to the body. LXXXIV.—The great ones of the earth can neither command health of body nor repose of mind, and they buy always at too dear a price the good they can acquire. LXXXV.—Before strongly desiring anything we should examine what

happiness he has who possesses it. LXXXVI.—A true friend is the greatest of all goods, and that of which we think least of acquiring. LXXXVII.—Lovers do not wish to see the faults of their mistresses until their enchantment is at an end. LXXXVIII.—Prudence and love are not made for each other; in the ratio that love increases, prudence diminishes. LXXXIX.—It is sometimes pleasing to a husband to have a jealous wife; he hears her always speaking of the beloved object. XC.—How much is a woman to be pitied who is at the same time possessed of virtue and love! XCI.—The wise man finds it better not to enter the encounter than to conquer. [Somewhat similar to Goldsmith’s sage— “Who quits {a} world where strong temptations try, And since ’tis hard to co{mbat}, learns to fly.”] XCII.—It is more necessary to study men than books. [“The proper study of mankind is man.” —Pope {Essay on Man, (1733), Epistle II, line 2}.] XCIII.—Good and evil ordinarily come to those who have most of one or the other. XCIV.—The accent and character of one’s native country dwells in the mind and heart as on the tongue. (Repitition of Maxim 342.) XCV.—The greater part of men have qualities which, like those of plants, are discovered by chance. (Repitition of Maxim 344.) XCVI.—A good woman is a hidden treasure; he who discovers her will do well not to boast about it. (See Maxim 368.)

XCVII.—Most women do not weep for the loss of a lover to show that they have been loved so much as to show that they are worth being loved. (See Maxim 362.) XCVIII.—There are many virtuous women who are weary of the part they have played. (See Maxim 367.) XCIX.—If we think we love for love’s sake we are much mistaken. (See Maxim 374.) C.—The restraint we lay upon ourselves to be constant, is not much better than an inconstancy. (See Maxim 369, 381.) CI.—There are those who avoid our jealousy, of whom we ought to be jealous. (See Maxim 359.) CII.—Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it. (See Maxim 361.) CIII.—When we love too much it is difficult to discover when we have ceased to be beloved. CIV.—We know very well that we should not talk about our wives, but we do not remember that it is not so well to speak of ourselves. (See Maxim 364.) CV.—Chance makes us known to others and to ourselves. (See Maxim 345.) CVI.—We find very few people of good sense, except those who are of our own opinion. (See Maxim 347.) CVII.—We commonly praise the good hearts of those who admire us. (See Maxim 356.) CVIII.—Man only blames himself in order that he may be praised.

CIX.—Little minds are wounded by the smallest things. (See Maxim 357.) CX.—There are certain faults which placed in a good light please more than perfection itself. (See Maxim 354.) CXI.—That which makes us so bitter against those who do us a shrewd turn, is because they think themselves more clever than we are. (See Maxim 350.) CXII.—We are always bored by those whom we bore. (See Maxim 352.) CXIII.—The harm that others do us is often less than that we do ourselves. (See Maxim 363.) CXIV.—It is never more difficult to speak well than when we are ashamed of being silent. CXV.—Those faults are always pardonable that we have the courage to avow. CXVI.—The greatest fault of penetration is not that it goes to the bottom of a matter—but beyond it. (See Maxim 377.) CXVII.—We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. (See Maxim 378.) CXVIII.—When our merit declines, our taste declines also. (See Maxim 379.) CXIX.—Fortune discovers our vices and our virtues, as the light makes objects plain to the sight. (See Maxim 380.) CXX.—Our actions are like rhymed verse-ends (Bouts-Rimés) which everyone turns as he pleases. (See Maxim 382.) CXXI.—There is nothing more natural, nor more deceptive, than to believe that we are beloved.

CXXII.—We would rather see those to whom we have done a benefit, than those who have done us one. CXXIII.—It is more difficult to hide the opinions we have than to feign those which we have not. CXXIV.—Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken. CXXV.—A man to whom no one is pleasing is much more unhappy than one who pleases nobody.

REFLECTIONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, BY THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD I. On Confidence Though sincerity and confidence have many points of resemblance, they have yet many points of difference. Sincerity is an openness of heart, which shows us what we are, a love of truth, a dislike to deception, a wish to compensate our faults and to lessen them by the merit of confessing them. Confidence leaves us less liberty, its rules are stricter, it requires more prudence and reticence, and we are not always free to give it. It relates not only to ourselves, since our interests are often mixed up with those of others; it requires great delicacy not to expose our friends in exposing ourselves, not to draw upon their goodness to enhance the value of what we give. Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge which gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit. I do not wish from what I have said to depreciate confidence, so necessary to man. It is in society the link between acquaintance and friendship. I only wish to state its limits to make it true and real. I would that it was always sincere, always discreet, and that it had neither weakness nor interest. I know it is hard to place proper limits on being taken into all our friends’ confidence, and taking them into all ours. Most frequently we make confidants from vanity, a love of talking, a wish to win the confidence of others, and make an exchange of secrets. Some may have a motive for confiding in us, towards whom we have no motive for confiding. With them we discharge the obligation in keeping their secrets and trusting them with small confidences.

Others whose fidelity we know trust nothing to us, but we confide in them by choice and inclination. We should hide from them nothing that concerns us, we should always show them with equal truth, our virtues and our vices, without exaggerating the one or diminishing the other. We should make it a rule never to have half confidences. They always embarrass those who give them, and dissatisfy those who receive them. They shed an uncertain light on what we want hidden, increase curiosity, entitling the recipients to know more, giving them leave to consider themselves free to talk of what they have guessed. It is far safer and more honest to tell nothing than to be silent when we have begun to tell. There are other rules to be observed in matters confided to us, all are important, to all prudence and trust are essential. Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secresy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last for ever. With those friends whose truth we know we have the closest intimacy. They have always spoken unreservedly to us, we should always do the same to them. They know our habits and connexions, and see too clearly not to perceive the slightest change. They may have elsewhere learnt what we have promised not to tell. It is not in our power to tell them what has been entrusted to us, though it might tend to their interest to know it. We feel as confident of them as of ourselves, and we are reduced to the hard fate of losing their friendship, which is dear to us, or of being faithless as regards a secret. This is doubtless the hardest test of fidelity, but it should not move an honest man; it is then that he can sacrifice himself to others. His first duty is to rigidly keep his trust in its entirety. He should not only control and guard his and his voice, but even his lighter talk, so that nothing be seen in his conversation or manner that could direct the curiosity of others towards that which he wishes to conceal. We have often need of strength and prudence wherewith to oppose the exigencies of most of our friends who make a claim on our confidence, and seek to know all about us. We should never allow them to acquire this unexceptionable right. There are accidents and circumstances which do not fall in their cognizance; if they complain, we should endure their

complaints and excuse ourselves with gentleness, but if they are still unreasonable, we should sacrifice their friendship to our duty, and choose between two inevitable evils, the one reparable, the other irreparable.

II. On Difference of Character Although all the qualities of mind may be united in a great genius, yet there are some which are special and peculiar to him; his views are unlimited; he always acts uniformly and with the same activity; he sees distant objects as if present; he comprehends and grasps the greatest, sees and notices the smallest matters; his thoughts are elevated, broad, just and intelligible. Nothing escapes his observation, and he often finds truth in spite of the obscurity that hides her from others. A lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others’ tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable. A clever, pliant, winning mind knows how to avoid and overcome difficulties. Bending easily to what it wants, it understands the inclination and temper it is dealing with, and by managing their interests it advances and establishes its own. A well regulated mind sees all things as they should be seen, appraises them at their proper value, turns them to its own advantage, and adheres firmly to its own opinions as it knows all their force and weight. A difference exists between a working mind and a business-like mind. We can undertake business without turning it to our own interest. Some are clever only in what does not concern them, and the reverse in all that does. There are others again whose cleverness is limited to their own business, and who know how to turn everything to their own advantage. It is possible to have a serious turn of mind, and yet to talk pleasantly and cheerfully. This class of mind is suited to all persons in all times of life. Young persons have usually a cheerful and satirical turn, untempered by seriousness, thus often making themselves disagreeable. No part is easier to play than that of being always pleasant; and the applause we sometimes receive in censuring others is not worth being exposed to the chance of offending them when they are out of temper.

Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much, yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirised can join in the satire. It is unfortunate to have a satirical turn without affecting to be pleased or without loving to jest. It requires much adroitness to continue satirical without falling into one of these extremes. Raillery is a kind of mirth which takes possession of the imagination, and shows every object in an absurd light; wit combines more or less softness or harshness. There is a kind of refined and flattering raillery that only hits the faults that persons admit, which understands how to hide the praise it gives under the appearance of blame, and shows the good while feigning a wish to hide it. An acute mind and a cunning mind are very dissimilar. The first always pleases; it is unfettered, it perceives the most delicate and sees the most imperceptible matters. A cunning spirit never goes straight, it endeavours to secure its object by byeways and short cuts. This conduct is soon found out, it always gives rise to distrust and never reaches greatness. There is a difference between an ardent and a brilliant mind, a fiery spirit travels further and faster, while a brilliant mind is sparkling, attractive, accurate. Gentleness of mind is an easy and accommodating manner which always pleases when not insipid. A mind full of details devotes itself to the management and regulation of the smallest particulars it meets with. This distinction is usually limited to little matters, yet it is not absolutely incompatible with greatness, and when these two qualities are united in the same mind they raise it infinitely above others. The expression “Bel Esprit” is much perverted, for all that one can say of the different kinds of mind meet together in the “Bel Esprit.” Yet as the epithet is bestowed on an infinite number of bad poets and tedious authors, it is more often used to ridicule than to praise. There are yet many other epithets for the mind which mean the same thing, the difference lies in the tone and manner of saying them, but as tones and manner cannot appear in writing I shall not go into distinctions I cannot

explain. Custom explains this in saying that a man has wit, has much wit, that he is a great wit; there are tones and manners which make all the difference between phrases which seem all alike on paper, and yet express a different order of mind. So we say that a man has only one kind of wit, that he has several, that he has every variety of wit. One can be a fool with much wit, and one need not be a fool even with very little wit. To have much mind is a doubtful expression. It may mean every class of mind that can be mentioned, it may mean none in particular. It may mean that he talks sensibly while he acts foolishly. We may have a mind, but a narrow one. A mind may be fitted for some things, not for others. We may have a large measure of mind fitted for nothing, and one is often inconvenienced with much mind; still of this kind of mind we may say that it is sometimes pleasing in society. Though the gifts of the mind are infinite, they can, it seems to me, be thus classified. There are some so beautiful that everyone can see and feel their beauty. There are some lovely, it is true, but which are wearisome. There are some which are lovely, which all the world admire, but without knowing why. There are some so refined and delicate that few are capable even of remarking all their beauties. There are others which, though imperfect, yet are produced with such skill, and sustained and managed with such sense and grace, that they even deserve to be admired.

III. On Taste Some persons have more wit than taste, others have more taste than wit. There is greater vanity and caprice in taste than in wit. The word taste has different meanings, which it is easy to mistake. There is a difference between the taste which in certain objects has an attraction for us, and the taste that makes us understand and distinguish the qualities we judge by. We may like a comedy without having a sufficiently fine and delicate

taste to criticise it accurately. Some tastes lead us imperceptibly to objects, from which others carry us away by their force or intensity. Some persons have bad taste in everything, others have bad taste only in some things, but a correct and good taste in matters within their capacity. Some have peculiar taste, which they know to be bad, but which they still follow. Some have a doubtful taste, and let chance decide, their indecision makes them change, and they are affected with pleasure or weariness on their friends’ judgment. Others are always prejudiced, they are the slaves of their tastes, which they adhere to in everything. Some know what is good, and are horrified at what is not; their opinions are clear and true, and they find the reason for their taste in their mind and understanding. Some have a species of instinct (the source of which they are ignorant of), and decide all questions that come before them by its aid, and always decide rightly. These follow their taste more than their intelligence, because they do not permit their temper and self-love to prevail over their natural discernment. All they do is in harmony, all is in the same spirit. This harmony makes them decide correctly on matters, and form a correct estimate of their value. But speaking generally there are few who have a taste fixed and independent of that of their friends, they follow example and fashion which generally form the standard of taste. In all the diversities of taste that we discern, it is very rare and almost impossible to meet with that sort of good taste that knows how to set a price on the particular, and yet understands the right value that should be placed on all. Our knowledge is too limited, and that correct discernment of good qualities which goes to form a correct judgment is too seldom to be met with except in regard to matters that do not concern us. As regards ourselves our taste has not this all-important discernment. Preoccupation, trouble, all that concern us, present it to us in another aspect. We do not see with the same eyes what does and what does not relate to us. Our taste is guided by the bent of our self-love and temper, which supplies us with new views which we adapt to an infinite number of changes and uncertainties. Our taste is no longer our own, we cease to control it, without our consent it changes, and the same objects appear to us in such divers aspects that ultimately we fail to perceive what we have seen and heard.

IV. On Society In speaking of society my plan is not to speak of friendship, for, though they have some connection, they are yet very different. The former has more in it of greatness and humility, and the greatest merit of the latter is to resemble the former. For the present I shall speak of that particular kind of intercourse that gentlemen should have with each other. It would be idle to show how far society is essential to men: all seek for it, and all find it, but few adopt the method of making it pleasant and lasting. Everyone seeks to find his pleasure and his advantage at the expense of others. We prefer ourselves always to those with whom we intend to live, and they almost always perceive the preference. It is this which disturbs and destroys society. We should discover a means to hide this love of selection since it is too ingrained in us to be in our power to destroy. We should make our pleasure that of other persons, to humour, never to wound their selflove. The mind has a great part to do in so great a work, but it is not merely sufficient for us to guide it in the different courses it should hold. The agreement we meet between minds would not keep society together for long if she was not governed and sustained by good sense, temper, and by the consideration which ought to exist between persons who have to live together. It sometimes happens that persons opposite in temper and mind become united. They doubtless hold together for different reasons, which cannot last for long. Society may subsist between those who are our inferiors by birth or by personal qualities, but those who have these advantages should not abuse them. They should seldom let it be perceived that they serve to instruct others. They should let their conduct show that they, too, have need to be guided and led by reason, and accommodate themselves as far as possible to the feeling and the interests of the others. To make society pleasant, it is essential that each should retain his freedom of action. A man should not see himself, or he should see himself without dependence, and at the same time amuse himself. He should have the power of separating himself without that separation bringing any change on the society. He should have the power to pass by one and the other, if he

does not wish to expose himself to occasional embarrassments; and he should remember that he is often bored when he believes he has not the power even to bore. He should share in what he believes to be the amusement of persons with whom he wishes to live, but he should not always be liable to the trouble of providing them. Complaisance is essential in society, but it should have its limits, it becomes a slavery when it is extreme. We should so render a free consent, that in following the opinion of our friends they should believe that they follow ours. We should readily excuse our friends when their faults are born with them, and they are less than their good qualities. We should often avoid to show what they have said, and what they have left unsaid. We should try to make them perceive their faults, so as to give them the merit of correcting them. There is a kind of politeness which is necessary in the intercourse among gentlemen, it makes them comprehend badinage, and it keeps them from using and employing certain figures of speech, too rude and unrefined, which are often used thoughtlessly when we hold to our opinion with too much warmth. The intercourse of gentlemen cannot subsist without a certain kind of confidence; this should be equal on both sides. Each should have an appearance of sincerity and of discretion which never causes the fear of anything imprudent being said. There should be some variety in wit. Those who have only one kind of wit cannot please for long unless they can take different roads, and not both use the same talents, thus adding to the pleasure of society, and keeping the same harmony that different voices and different instruments should observe in music; and as it is detrimental to the quiet of society, that many persons should have the same interests, it is yet as necessary for it that their interests should not be different. We should anticipate what can please our friends, find out how to be useful to them so as to exempt them from annoyance, and when we cannot avert evils, seem to participate in them, insensibly obliterate without attempting to destroy them at a blow, and place agreeable objects in their place, or at least such as will interest them. We should talk of subjects that concern them, but only so far as they like, and we should take great care

where we draw the line. There is a species of politeness, and we may say a similar species of humanity, which does not enter too quickly into the recesses of the heart. It often takes pains to allow us to see all that our friends know, while they have still the advantage of not knowing to the full when we have penetrated the depth of the heart. Thus the intercourse between gentlemen at once gives them familiarity and furnishes them with an infinite number of subjects on which to talk freely. Few persons have sufficient tact and good sense fairly to appreciate many matters that are essential to maintain society. We desire to turn away at a certain point, but we do not want to be mixed up in everything, and we fear to know all kinds of truth. As we should stand at a certain distance to view objects, so we should also stand at a distance to observe society; each has its proper point of view from which it should be regarded. It is quite right that it should not be looked at too closely, for there is hardly a man who in all matters allows himself to be seen as he really is.

V. On Conversation The reason why so few persons are agreeable in conversation is that each thinks more of what he desires to say, than of what the others say, and that we make bad listeners when we want to speak. Yet it is necessary to listen to those who talk, we should give them the time they want, and let them say even senseless things; never contradict or interrupt them; on the contrary, we should enter into their mind and taste, illustrate their meaning, praise anything they say that deserves praise, and let them see we praise more from our choice than from agreement with them. To please others we should talk on subjects they like and that interest them, avoid disputes upon indifferent matters, seldom ask questions, and never let them see that we pretend to be better informed than they are. We should talk in a more or less serious manner, and upon more or less abstruse subjects, according to the temper and understanding of the persons we talk with, and readily give them the advantage of deciding without obliging them to answer when they are not anxious to talk.

After having in this way fulfilled the duties of politeness, we can speak our opinions to our listeners when we find an opportunity without a sign of presumption or opinionatedness. Above all things we should avoid often talking of ourselves and giving ourselves as an example; nothing is more tiresome than a man who quotes himself for everything. We cannot give too great study to find out the manner and the capacity of those with whom we talk, so as to join in the conversation of those who have more than ourselves without hurting by this preference the wishes or interests of others. Then we should modestly use all the modes abovementioned to show our thoughts to them, and make them, if possible, believe that we take our ideas from them. We should never say anything with an air of authority, nor show any superiority of mind. We should avoid far-fetched expressions, expressions hard or forced, and never let the words be grander than the matter. It is not wrong to retain our opinions if they are reasonable, but we should yield to reason, wherever she appears and from whatever side she comes, she alone should govern our opinions, we should follow her without opposing the opinions of others, and without seeming to ignore what they say. It is dangerous to seek to be always the leader of the conversation, and to push a good argument too hard, when we have found one. Civility often hides half its understanding, and when it meets with an opinionated man who defends the bad side, spares him the disgrace of giving way. We are sure to displease when we speak too long and too often of one subject, and when we try to turn the conversation upon subjects that we think more instructive than others, we should enter indifferently upon every subject that is agreeable to others, stopping where they wish, and avoiding all they do not agree with. Every kind of conversation, however witty it may be, is not equally fitted for all clever persons; we should select what is to their taste and suitable to their condition, their sex, their talents, and also choose the time to say it. We should observe the place, the occasion, the temper in which we find the person who listens to us, for if there is much art in speaking to the purpose, there is no less in knowing when to be silent. There is an eloquent silence which serves to approve or to condemn, there is a silence of

discretion and of respect. In a word, there is a tone, an air, a manner, which renders everything in conversation agreeable or disagreeable, refined or vulgar. But it is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that will ever give ground for regret.

VI. Falsehood We are false in different ways. There are some men who are false from wishing always to appear what they are not. There are some who have better faith, who are born false, who deceive themselves, and who never see themselves as they really are; to some is given a true understanding and a false taste, others have a false understanding and some correctness in taste; there are some who have not any falsity either in taste or mind. These last are very rare, for to speak generally, there is no one who has not some falseness in some corner of his mind or his taste. What makes this falseness so universal, is that as our qualities are uncertain and confused, so too, are our tastes; we do not see things exactly as they are, we value them more or less than they are worth, and do not bring them into unison with ourselves in a manner which suits them or suits our condition or qualities. This mistake gives rise to an infinite number of falsities in the taste and in the mind. Our self-love is flattered by all that presents itself to us under the guise of good. But as there are many kinds of good which affect our vanity and our temper, so they are often followed from custom or advantage. We follow because the others follow, without considering that the same feeling ought not to be equally embarrassing to all kinds of persons, and that it should attach itself more or less firmly, according as persons agree more or less with those who follow them. We dread still more to show falseness in taste than in mind. Gentleness should approve without prejudice what deserves to be approved, follow what deserves to be followed, and take offence at nothing. But there should be great distinction and great accuracy. We should distinguish between what

is good in the abstract and what is good for ourselves, and always follow in reason the natural inclination which carries us towards matters that please us. If men only wished to excel by the help of their own talents, and in following their duty, there would be nothing false in their taste or in their conduct. They would show what they were, they would judge matters by their lights, and they would attract by their reason. There would be a discernment in their views, in their sentiments, their taste would be true, it would come to them direct, and not from others, they would follow from choice and not from habit or chance. If we are false in admiring what should not be admired, it is oftener from envy that we affix a value to qualities which are good in themselves, but which do not become us. A magistrate is false when he flatters himself he is brave, and that he will be able to be bold in certain cases. He should be as firm and stedfast in a plot which ought to be stifled without fear of being false, as he would be false and absurd in fighting a duel about it. A woman may like science, but all sciences are not suitable for her, and the doctrines of certain sciences never become her, and when applied by her are always false. We should allow reason and good sense to fix the value of things, they should determine our taste and give things the merit they deserve, and the importance it is fitting we should give them. But nearly all men are deceived in the price and in the value, and in these mistakes there is always a kind of falseness.

VII. On Air and Manner There is an air which belongs to the figure and talents of each individual; we always lose it when we abandon it to assume another. We should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon it, but make it as perfect as we can. This is the reason that the majority of children please. It is because they are wrapt up in the air and manner nature has given them, and are ignorant of any other. They are changed and corrupted when they quit infancy, they think they should imitate what they see, and they are not altogether able to imitate it. In this imitation there is always something of falsity and uncertainty. They have nothing settled in

their manner and opinions. Instead of being in reality what they want to appear, they seek to appear what they are not. All men want to be different, and to be greater than they are; they seek for an air other than their own, and a mind different from what they possess; they take their style and manner at chance. They make experiments upon themselves without considering that what suits one person will not suit everyone, that there is no universal rule for taste or manners, and that there are no good copies. Few men, nevertheless, can have unison in many matters without being a copy of each other, if each follow his natural turn of mind. But in general a person will not wholly follow it. He loves to imitate. We often imitate the same person without perceiving it, and we neglect our own good qualities for the good qualities of others, which generally do not suit us. I do not pretend, from what I say, that each should so wrap himself up in himself as not to be able to follow example, or to add to his own, useful and serviceable habits, which nature has not given him. Arts and sciences may be proper for the greater part of those who are capable for them. Good manners and politeness are proper for all the world. But, yet acquired qualities should always have a certain agreement and a certain union with our own natural qualities, which they imperceptibly extend and increase. We are elevated to a rank and dignity above ourselves. We are often engaged in a new profession for which nature has not adapted us. All these conditions have each an air which belong to them, but which does not always agree with our natural manner. This change of our fortune often changes our air and our manners, and augments the air of dignity, which is always false when it is too marked, and when it is not united and amalgamated with that which nature has given us. We should unite and blend them together, and thus render them such that they can never be separated. We should not speak of all subjects in one tone and in the same manner. We do not march at the head of a regiment as we walk on a promenade; and we should use the same style in which we should naturally speak of different things in the same way, with the same difference as we should walk, but always naturally, and as is suitable, either at the head of a regiment or on a promenade. There are some who are not content to abandon the air and manner natural to them to assume those of the rank and

dignities to which they have arrived. There are some who assume prematurely the air of the dignities and rank to which they aspire. How many lieutenant-generals assume to be marshals of France, how many barristers vainly repeat the style of the Chancellor and how many female citizens give themselves the airs of duchesses. But what we are most often vexed at is that no one knows how to conform his air and manners with his appearance, nor his style and words with his thoughts and sentiments, that every one forgets himself and how far he is insensibly removed from the truth. Nearly every one falls into this fault in some way. No one has an ear sufficiently fine to mark perfectly this kind of cadence. Thousands of people with good qualities are displeasing; thousands pleasing with far less abilities, and why? Because the first wish to appear to be what they are not, the second are what they appear. Some of the advantages or disadvantages that we have received from nature please in proportion as we know the air, the style, the manner, the sentiments that coincide with our condition and our appearance, and displease in the proportion they are removed from that point.

Maxims and Reflections Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

LIFE AND CHARACTER I 1. There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again. 2. How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth. 3. But what is your duty? The claims of the day. 4. The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental. 5. The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity,—to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything. 6. Be genuine and strenuous; earn for yourself, and look for, grace from those in high places; from the powerful, favour; from the active and the good, advancement; from the many, affection; from the individual, love. 7. Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are. If I know what your business is, I know what can be made of you. 8. Every man must think after his own fashion; for on his own path he finds a truth, or a kind of truth, which helps him through life. But he must not give himself the rein; he must control himself; mere naked instinct does not become him.

9. Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to bankruptcy. 10. In the works of mankind, as in those of nature, it is really the motive which is chiefly worth attention. 11. Men get out of countenance with themselves and others because they treat the means as the end, and so, from sheer doing, do nothing, or, perhaps, just what they would have avoided. 12. Our plans and designs should be so perfect in truth and beauty, that in touching them the world could only mar. We should thus have the advantage of setting right what is wrong, and restoring what is destroyed. 13. It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half-, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place. 14. It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly. 15. General ideas and great conceit are always in a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune. 16. You cannot play the flute by blowing alone: you must use your fingers. 17. In Botany there is a species of plants called Incompletæ; and just in the same way it can be said that there are men who are incomplete and imperfect. They are those whose desires and struggles are out of proportion to their actions and achievements. 18. The most insignificant man can be complete if he works within the limits of his capacities, innate or acquired; but even fine talents can be obscured, neutralised, and destroyed by lack of this indispensable requirement of symmetry. This is a mischief which will often occur in modern times; for who will be able to come up to the claims of an age so full and intense as this, and one too that moves so rapidly?

19. It is only men of practical ability, knowing their powers and using them with moderation and prudence, who will be successful in worldly affairs. 20. It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth. 21. From time to time I meet with a youth in whom I can wish for no alteration or improvement, only I am sorry to see how often his nature makes him quite ready to swim with the stream of the time; and it is on this that I would always insist, that man in his fragile boat has the rudder placed in his hand, just that he may not be at the mercy of the waves, but follow the direction of his own insight. 22. But how is a young man to come of himself to see blame in things which every one is busy with, which every one approves and promotes? Why should he not follow his natural bent and go in the same direction as they? 23. I must hold it for the greatest calamity of our time, which lets nothing come to maturity, that one moment is consumed by the next, and the day spent in the day; so that a man is always living from hand to mouth, without having anything to show for it. Have we not already newspapers for every hour of the day! A good head could assuredly intercalate one or other of them. They publish abroad everything that every one does, or is busy with or meditating; nay, his very designs are thereby dragged into publicity. No one can rejoice or be sorry, but as a pastime for others; and so it goes on from house to house, from city to city, from kingdom to kingdom, and at last from one hemisphere to the other,—all in post haste. 24. As little as you can stifle a steam-engine, so little can you do this in the moral sphere either. The activity of commerce, the rush and rustle of papermoney, the swelling-up of debts to pay debts—all these are the monstrous elements to which in these days a young man is exposed. Well is it for him if he is gifted by nature with a sober, quiet temperament; neither to make claims on the world out of all proportion to his position, nor yet let the world determine it.

25. But on all sides he is threatened by the spirit of the day, and nothing is more needful than to make him see early enough the direction in which his will has to steer. 26. The significance of the most harmless words and actions grows with the years, and if I see any one about me for any length of time, I always try to show him the difference there is between sincerity, confidence, and indiscretion; nay, that in truth there is no difference at all, but a gentle transition from what is most innocent to what is most hurtful; a transition which must be perceived or rather felt. 27. Herein we must exercise our tact; otherwise in the very way in which we have won the favour of mankind, we run the risk of trifling it away again unawares. This is a lesson which a man learns quite well for himself in the course of life, but only after having paid a dear price for it; nor can he, unhappily, spare his posterity a like expenditure. 28. Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything. 29. Character calls forth character. 30. If I am to listen to another man’s opinion, it must be expressed positively. Of things problematical I have enough in myself. 31. Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe. 32. I keep silence about many things, for I do not want to put people out of countenance; and I am well content if they are pleased with things that annoy me. 33. Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.

34. A man is really alive only when he delights in the good-will of others. 35. Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquillity of soul. 36. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites. 37. When a man is old he must do more than when he was young. 38. To fulfil a duty is still always to feel it as a debt, for it is never quite satisfying to oneself. 39. Defects are perceived only by one who has no love; therefore, to see them, a man must become uncharitable, but not more so than is necessary for the purpose. 40. The greatest piece of good fortune is that which corrects our deficiencies and redeems our mistakes. 41. Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others. 42. The stream is friendly to the miller whom it serves; it likes to pour over the mill wheels; what is the good of it stealing through the valley in apathy? 43. Whoso is content with pure experience and acts upon it has enough of truth. The growing child is wise in this sense. 44. Theory is in itself of no use, except in so far as it makes us believe in the connection of phenomena. 45. When a man asks too much and delights in complication, he is exposed to perplexity. 46. Thinking by means of analogies is not to be condemned. Analogy has

this advantage, that it comes to no conclusion, and does not, in truth, aim at finality at all. Induction, on the contrary, is fatal, for it sets up an object and keeps it in view, and, working on towards it, drags false and true with it in its train. 47. The absent works upon us by tradition. The usual form of it may be called historical; a higher form, akin to the imaginative faculty, is the mythical. If some third form of it is to be sought behind this last, and it has any meaning, it is transformed into the mystical. It also easily becomes sentimental, so that we appropriate to our use only what suits us. 48. In contemplation as in action, we must distinguish between what may be attained and what is unattainable. Without this, little can be achieved, either in life or in knowledge. 49. ‘Le sense commun est le génie de l’humanité.’ Common-sense, which is here put forward as the genius of humanity, must be examined first of all in the way it shows itself. If we inquire the purpose to which humanity puts it, we find as follows: Humanity is conditioned by needs. If they are not satisfied, men become impatient; and if they are, it seems not to affect them. The normal man moves between these two states, and he applies his understanding—his so-called commonsense—to the satisfaction of his needs. When his needs are satisfied, his task is to fill up the waste spaces of indifference. Here, too, he is successful, if his needs are confined to what is nearest and most necessary. But if they rise and pass beyond the sphere of ordinary wants, common-sense is no longer sufficient; it is a genius no more, and humanity enters on the region of error. 50. There is no piece of foolishness but it can be corrected by intelligence or accident; no piece of wisdom but it can miscarry by lack of intelligence or by accident. 51. Every great idea is a tyrant when it first appears; hence the advantages which it produces change all too quickly into disadvantages. It is possible, then, to defend and praise any institution that exists, if its beginnings are

brought to remembrance, and it is shown that everything which was true of it at the beginning is true of it still. 52. Lessing, who chafed under the sense of various limitations, makes one of his characters say: No one must do anything. A clever pious man said: If a man wills something, he must do it. A third, who was, it is true, an educated man, added: Will follows upon insight. The whole circle of knowledge, will, and necessity was thus believed to have been completed. But, as a rule, a man’s knowledge, of whatever kind it may be, determines what he shall do and what he shall leave undone, and so it is that there is no more terrible sight than ignorance in action. 53. There are two powers that make for peace: what is right, and what is fitting. 54. Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. Justice weighs and decides, law superintends and orders. Justice refers to the individual, law to society. 55. The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

II 56. If a man is to achieve all that is asked of him, he must take himself for more than he is, and as long as he does not carry it to an absurd length, we willingly put up with it. 57. Work makes companionship. 58. People whip curds to see if they cannot make cream of them. 59. It is much easier to put yourself in the position of a mind taken up with the most absolute error, than of one which mirrors to itself half-truths. 60. Wisdom lies only in truth.

61. When I err, every one can see it; but not when I lie. 62. Is not the world full enough of riddles already, without our making riddles too out of the simplest phenomena? 63. ‘The finest hair throws a shadow.’ Erasmus. 64. What I have tried to do in my life through false tendencies, I have at last learned to understand. 65. Generosity wins favour for every one, especially when it is accompanied by modesty. 66. Before the storm breaks, the dust rises violently for the last time—the dust that is soon to be laid forever. 67. Men do not come to know one another easily, even with the best will and the best purpose. And then ill-will comes in and distorts everything. 68. We should know one another better if one man were not so anxious to put himself on an equality with another. 69. Eminent men are therefore in a worse plight than others; for, as we cannot compare ourselves with them, we are on the watch for them. 70. In the world the point is, not to know men, but at any given moment to be cleverer than the man who stands before you. You can prove this at every fair and from every charlatan. 71. Not everywhere where there is water, are there frogs; but where you have frogs, there you will find water. 72. Error is quite right as long as we are young, but we must not carry it on with us into our old age. Whims and eccentricities that grow stale are all useless, rank nonsense. 73. In the formation of species Nature gets, as it were, into a cul-de-sac; she

cannot make her way through, and is disinclined to turn back. Hence the stubbornness of national character. 74. Every one has something in his nature which, if he were to express it openly, would of necessity give offence. 75. If a man thinks about his physical or moral condition, he generally finds that he is ill. 76. Nature asks that a man should sometimes be stupefied without going to sleep; hence the pleasure in the smoking of tobacco, the drinking of brandy, the use of opiates. 77. The man who is up and doing should see to it that what he does is right. Whether or not right is done, is a matter which should not trouble him. 78. Many a man knocks about on the wall with his hammer, and believes that he hits the right nail on the head every time. 79. Painting and tattooing of the body is a return to animalism. 80. History-writing is a way of getting rid of the past. 81. What a man does not understand, he does not possess. 82. Not every one who has a pregnant thought delivered to him becomes productive; it probably makes him think of something with which he is quite familiar. 83. Favour, as a symbol of sovereignty, is exercised by weak men. 84. Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced. 85. Memory may vanish so long as at the moment judgment does not fail you. 86. No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pass judgment on

itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time. 87. Instead of contradicting my words people ought to act in my spirit. 88. Those who oppose intellectual truths do but stir up the fire, and the cinders fly about and burn what they had else not touched. 89. Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it. 90. What a long time people were vainly disputing about the Antipodes! 91. Certain minds must be allowed their peculiarities. 92. Snow is false purity. 93. Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations. 94. Those from whom we are always learning are rightly called our masters; but not every one who teaches us deserves this title. 95. It is with you as with the sea: the most varied names are given to what is in the end only salt water. 96. It is said that vain self-praise stinks in the nostrils. That may be so; but for the kind of smell which comes from unjust blame by others the public has no nose at all. 97. There are problematical natures which are equal to no position in which they find themselves, and which no position satisfies. This it is that causes that hideous conflict which wastes life and deprives it of all pleasure. 98. If we do any real good, it is mostly clam, vi, et precario. 99. Dirt glitters as long as the sun shines. 100. It is difficult to be just to the passing moment. We are bored by it if it is neither good nor bad; but the good moment lays a task upon us, and the

bad moment a burden. 101. He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection with the beginning. 102. So obstinately contradictory is man that you cannot compel him to his advantage, yet he yields before everything that forces him to his hurt. 103. Forethought is simple, afterthought manifold. 104. A state of things in which every day brings some new trouble is not the right one. 105. When people suffer by failing to look before them, nothing is commoner than trying to look out for some possible remedy. 106. The Hindoos of the Desert make a solemn vow to eat no fish. 107. To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won. 108. It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth. 109. Truth belongs to the man, error to his age. This is why it has been said that, while the misfortune of the age caused his error, the force of his soul made him emerge from the error with glory. 110. Every one has his peculiarities and cannot get rid of them; and yet many a one is destroyed by his peculiarities, and those too of the most innocent kind. 111. If a man does think too much of himself, he is more than he believes himself to be. 112. In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its

nature. 113. When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves. 114. I pity those who make much ado about the transitory nature of all things and are lost in the contemplation of earthly vanity: are we not here to make the transitory permanent? This we can do only if we know how to value both. 115. A rainbow which lasts a quarter of an hour is looked at no more. 116. It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries,—to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself. 117. Faith is private capital, kept in one’s own house. There are public savings-banks and loan-offices, which supply individuals in their day of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself. 118. Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false. 119. During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest must join in submitting itself. 120. Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes that we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt. 121. ‘The wise have much in common with one another.’ Æschylus.

122. The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not exactly hit upon the right way of saying it. 123. Because a man speaks, he thinks he is able to speak about language. 124. One need only grow old to become gentler in one’s judgments. I see no fault committed which I could not have committed myself. 125. The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks. 126. Why should those who are happy expect one who is miserable to die before them in a graceful attitude, like the gladiator before the Roman mob? 127. Some one asked Timon about the education of his children. ‘Let them,’ he said, ‘be instructed in that which they will never understand.’ 128. There are people whom I wish well, and would that I could wish better. 129. By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still loved. 130. Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns so soon to hatred. 131. There is something magical in rhythm; it even makes us believe that we possess the sublime. 132. Dilettantism treated seriously, and knowledge pursued mechanically, end by becoming pedantry. 133. No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the master,—that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art is helped. 134. The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been

recognised by others. 135. Scholars are generally malignant when they are refuting others; and if they think a man is making a mistake, they straightway look upon him as their mortal enemy. 136. Beauty can never really understand itself.

III 137. It is much easier to recognise error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to every one. 138. We all live on the past, and through the past are destroyed. 139. We are no sooner about to learn some great lesson than we take refuge in our own innate poverty of soul, and yet for all that the lesson has not been quite in vain. 140. The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill-will and envy. 141. Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them. 142. Confidences are strange things. If you listen only to one man, it is possible that he is deceived or mistaken; if you listen to many, they are in a like case; and, generally, you cannot get at the truth at all. 143. No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how much determination he is capable. 144. An honourable man with limited ideas often sees through the rascality of the most cunning jobber.

145. If a man feels no love, he must learn how to flatter; otherwise he will not succeed. 146. Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him. 147. The masses cannot dispense with men of ability, and such men are always a burden to them. 148. If a man spreads my failings abroad, he is my master, even though he were my servant. 149. Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet. 150. If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well. 151. I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial. 152. Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful. 153. We are all so limited that we always think we are right; and so we may conceive of an extraordinary mind which not only errs but has a positive delight in error. 154. It is very rare to find pure and steady activity in the accomplishment of what is good and right. We usually see pedantry trying to keep back, and audacity trying to go on too fast. 155. Word and picture are correlatives which are continually in quest of each other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes. So from all time what was said or sung inwardly to the ear had to be presented equally to the eye. And so in childish days we see word and picture in continual balance; in the book of the law and in the way of salvation, in the Bible and in the spelling-book. When something was

spoken which could not be pictured, and something pictured which could not be spoken, all went well; but mistakes were often made, and a word was used instead of a picture; and thence arose those monsters of symbolical mysticism, which are doubly an evil. 156. For the man of the world a collection of anecdotes and maxims is of the greatest value, if he knows how to intersperse the one in his conversation at fitting moments, and remember the other when a case arises for their application. 157. When you lose interest in anything, you also lose the memory for it. 158. The world is a bell with a crack in it; it rattles, but does not ring. 159. The importunity of young dilettanti must be borne with good-will; for as they grow old they become the truest worshippers of Art and the Master. 160. People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it. 161. Clever people are the best encyclopædia. 162. There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing. 163. If I know my relation to myself and the outer world, I call it truth. Every man can have his own peculiar truth; and yet it is always the same. 164. No one is the master of any truly productive energy; and all men must let it work on by itself. 165. A man never understands how anthropomorphic he is. 166. A difference which offers nothing to the understanding is no difference at all. 167. A man cannot live for every one; least of all for those with whom he would not care to live.

168. If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them. 169. Things that are mysterious are not yet miracles. 170. ‘Converts are not in my good books.’ 171. A frivolous impulsive encouragement of problematical talents was a mistake of my early years; and I have never been able to abandon it altogether. 172. I should like to be honest with you, without our falling out; but it will not do. You act wrongly, and fall between two stools; you win no adherents and lose your friends. What is to be the end of it? 173. It is all one whether you are of high or of humble origin. You will always have to pay for your humanity. 174. When I hear people speak of liberal ideas, it is always a wonder to me that men are so readily put off with empty verbiage. An idea cannot be liberal; but it may be potent, vigorous, exclusive, in order to fulfil its mission of being productive. Still less can a concept be liberal; for a concept has quite another mission. Where, however, we must look for liberality, is in the sentiments; and the sentiments are the inner man as he lives and moves. A man’s sentiments, however, are rarely liberal, because they proceed directly from him personally, and from his immediate relations and requirements. Further we will not write, and let us apply this test to what we hear every day. 175. If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one. 176. There is a poetry without figures of speech, which is a single figure of speech. 177. I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to understand the particular achievements of the best men.

178. It is only when a man knows little, that he knows anything at all. With knowledge grows doubt. 179. The errors of a man are what make him really lovable. 180. There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it. 181. If a man has always let himself think the world as bad as the adversary represents it to be, he must have become a miserable person. 182. Ill-favour and hatred limit the spectator to the surface, even when keen perception is added unto them; but when keen perception unites with goodwill and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal of all. 183. Raw matter is seen by every one; the contents are found only by him who has his eyes about him; and the form is a secret to the majority. 184. We may learn to know the world as we please: it will always retain a bright and a dark side. 185. Error is continually repeating itself in action, and we must unweariedly repeat the truth in word. 186. As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live. 187. Mankind is like the Red Sea: the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder, before they flow together again. 188. Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return. 189. Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best. 190. We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father that does not grudge talent to his son.

191. There is no virtue in subordinating oneself; but there is virtue in descending, and in recognising anything as above us, which is beneath us. 192. The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist. 193. All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him who wearies not. 194. Hope is the second soul of the unhappy. 195. Love is a true renovator. 196. Mankind is not without a wish to serve; hence the chivalry of the French is a servitude. 197. In the theatre the pleasure of what we see and hear restrains our reflections. 198. There is no limit to the increase of experience, but theories cannot become clearer and more complete in just the same sense. The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of the human faculties. Hence there is no way of looking at the world, but it recurs, and the curious thing happens, that with increased experience a limited theory may again come into favour. It is always the same world which stands open to observation, which is continually being contemplated or guessed at; and it is always the same men who live in the true or in the false; more at their ease in the latter than in the former. 199. Truth is at variance with our natures, but not so error; and for a very simple reason. Truth requires us to recognise ourselves as limited, but error flatters us with the belief that in one way or another we are subject to no bounds at all. 200. That some men think they can still do what they have been able to do, is natural enough; that others think they can do what they have never been able to do, is singular, but not rare.

201. At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike. 202. That is true Symbolism, where the more particular represents the more general, not as a dream or shade, but as a vivid, instantaneous revelation of the Inscrutable. 203. Everything of an abstract or symbolic nature, as soon as it is challenged by realities, ends by consuming them and itself. So credit consumes both money and itself. 204. Mastery often passes for egoism. 205. With Protestants, as soon as good works cease and their merit is denied, sentimentality takes their place. 206. If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself. 207. The use of mottoes is to indicate something we have not attained, but strive to attain. It is right to keep them always before our eyes. 208. ‘If a man cannot lift a stone himself, let him leave it, even though he has some one to help him.’ 209. Despotism promotes general self-government, because from top to bottom it makes the individual responsible, and so produces the highest degree of activity. 210. A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and even then he is lucky. 211. Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it. 212. School itself is the only true preparation for it.

213. Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour. 214. Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others to have them share in his joy. 215. Men’s prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common-sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them. 216. Characters often make a law of their failings. Men who know the world have said that when prudence is only fear in disguise, its scruples cannot be conquered. The weak often have revolutionary sentiments; they think they would be well off if they were not ruled, and fail to perceive that they can rule neither themselves nor others. 217. Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure. 218. All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong do too much, and the weak too little. 219. The conflict of the old, the existing, the continuing, with development, improvement, and reform, is always the same. Order of every kind turns at last to pedantry, and to get rid of the one, people destroy the other; and so it goes on for a while, until people perceive that order must be established anew. Classicism and Romanticism; close corporations and freedom of trade; the maintenance of large estates and the division of the land,—it is always the same conflict which ends by producing a new one. The best policy of those in power would be so to moderate this conflict as to let it right itself without the destruction of either element. But this has not been granted to men, and it seems not to be the will of God.

220. A great work limits us for the moment, because we feel it above our powers; and only in so far as we afterwards incorporate it with our culture, and make it part of our mind and heart, does it become a dear and worthy object. 221. It is no wonder that we all more or less delight in the mediocre, because it leaves us in peace: it gives us the comfortable feeling of intercourse with what is like ourselves. 222. There is no use in reproving vulgarity, for it never changes. 223. We cannot escape a contradiction in ourselves; we must try to resolve it. If the contradiction comes from others, it does not affect us: it is their affair. 224. There are many things in the world that are at once good and excellent, but they do not come into contact. 225. Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. 226. When men have to do with women, they get spun off like a distaff. 227. It may well be that a man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes, public and private: but the reckless flail of Fate, when it beats the rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; and the corn feels nothing of it and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill or the furrow. 228. However probable it is that a desire may be fulfilled, there is always a doubt; and so when the desire is realised, it is always surprising. 229. Absurdities presented with good taste rouse disgust and admiration. 230. Of the best society it used to be said: their speech instructs the mind, and their silence the feelings. 231. Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

232. Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave. 233. We treat the aged with consideration, as we treat children. 234. An old man loses one of the greatest of human privileges: he is no more judged by his peers. 235. In the matter of knowledge, it has happened to me as to one who rises early, and in the dark impatiently awaits the dawn, and then the sun; but is blinded when it appears. 236. Great primeval powers, evolved in time or in eternity, work on unceasingly: whether to weal or to woe, is a matter of chance.

IV 237. People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle. 238. Of the Absolute in the theoretical sense, I do not venture to speak; but this I maintain: that if a man recognises it in its manifestation, and always keeps his gaze fixed upon it, he will experience very great reward. 239. To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years. 240. Napoleon lived wholly in a great idea, but he was unable to take conscious hold of it. After utterly disavowing all ideals and denying them any reality, he zealously strove to realise them. His clear, incorruptible

intellect could not, however, tolerate such a perpetual conflict within; and there is much value in the thoughts which he was compelled, as it were, to utter, and which are expressed very peculiarly and with much charm. 241. He considered the idea as a thing of the mind, that had, it is true, no reality, but still, on passing away, left a residuum—a caput mortuum—to which some reality could not be altogether refused. We may think this a very perverse and material notion; but when he entertained his friends with the neverending consequences of his life and actions, in full belief and confidence in them, he expressed himself quite differently. Then, indeed, he was ready to admit that life produces life; that a fruitful act has effects to all time. He took pleasure in confessing that he had given a great impulse, a new direction, to the course of the world’s affairs. 242. It always remains a very remarkable fact that men whose whole personality is almost all idea, are so extremely shy of all phantasy. In this case was Hamann, who could not bear the mention of “things of another world.” He took occasion to express himself on this point in a certain paragraph, which he wrote in fourteen different ways; and still, apparently, he was never quite satisfied with it. Two of these attempts have been preserved to us; a third we have ourselves attempted, which we are induced to print here by the preceding observations. 243. Man is placed as a real being in the midst of a real world, and endowed with such organs that he can perceive and produce the real and also the possible. All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of an existence around them. However, even the brain contains a hollow spot, that is to say, a place in which no object is mirrored; just as in the eye itself there is a little spot that does not see. If a man pays particular attention to this spot and is absorbed in it, he falls into a state of mental sickness, has presentiments of “things of another world,” which are, in reality, no things at all; possessing neither form nor limit, but alarming him like dark, empty tracts of night, and pursuing him as something more than phantoms, if he does not tear himself free from them.

244. To the several perversities of the day a man should always oppose only the great masses of universal history. 245. No one can live much with children without finding that they always react to any outward influence upon them. 246. With any specially childish nature the reaction is even passionate, while its action is energetic. 247. That is why children’s lives are a series of refined judgments, not to say prejudices; and to efface a rapid but partial perception in order to make way for a more general one, time is necessary. To bear this in mind is one of the teacher’s greatest duties. 248. Friendship can only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice. Affection, nay, love itself, is no help at all to friendship. True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life: in my friend approving my aims, while I approve his, and in thus moving forwards together steadfastly, however much our way of thought and life may vary.

V 249. In the world people take a man at his own estimate; but he must estimate himself at something. Disagreeableness is more easily tolerated than insignificance. 250. You can force anything on society so long as it has no sequel. 251. We do not learn to know men if they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are. 252. That we have many criticisms to make on those who visit us, and that, as soon as they depart, we pass no very amiable judgment upon them, seems to me almost natural; for we have, so to speak, a right to measure them by our own standard. Even intelligent and fair-minded men hardly refrain from sharp censure on such occasions.

253. But if, on the contrary, we have been in their homes, and have seen them in their surroundings and habits and the circumstances which are necessary and inevitable for them; if we have seen the kind of influence they exert on those around them, or how they behave, it is only ignorance and ill-will that can find food for ridicule in what must appear to us in more than one sense worthy of respect. 254. What we call conduct and good manners obtains for us that which otherwise is to be obtained only by force, or not even by force. 255. Women’s society is the element of good manners. 256. How can the character, the peculiar nature of a man, be compatible with good manners? 257. It is through his good manners that a man’s peculiar nature should be made all the more conspicuous. Every one likes distinction, but it should not be disagreeable. 258. The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature, we get on with them at need. 259. No one is more troublesome than an awkward civilian. As his business is not with anything brutal or coarse, he might be expected to show delicacy of feeling. 260. When we live with people who have a delicate sense of what is fitting, we get quite anxious about them if anything happens to disturb this sense. 261. No one would come into a room with spectacles on his nose, if he knew that women at once lose any inclination to look at or talk to him. 262. A familiar in the place of a respectful demeanour is always ridiculous. 263. There is no outward sign of politeness that will be found to lack some

deep moral foundation. The right kind of education would be that which conveyed the sign and the foundation at the same time. 264. A man’s manners are the mirror in which he shows his portrait. 265. There is a politeness of the heart, and it is allied to love. It produces the most agreeable politeness of outward demeanour. 266. Voluntary dependence is the best state, and how should that be possible without love? 267. We are never further from our wishes than when we fancy we possess the object of them. 268. No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so. 269. A man has only to declare himself free to feel at the same moment that he is limited. Should he venture to declare himself limited, he feels himself free. 270. Against the great superiority of another there is no remedy but love. 271. It is a terrible thing for an eminent man to be gloried in by fools. 272. It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is only because a hero can be recognised only by a hero. The valet will probably know how to appreciate his like,—his fellow-valet. 273. There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal. 274. The greatest men are linked to their age by some weak point. 275. We generally take men to be more dangerous than they are. 276. Fools and wise folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the halffoolish, who are the most dangerous.

277. To see a difficult thing lightly handled gives us the impression of the impossible. 278. Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim. 279. Sowing is not so painful as reaping. 280. We are fond of looking to the future, because our secret wishes make us apt to turn in our favour the uncertainties which move about in it hither and thither. 281. It is not easy to be in any great assembly without thinking that the chance which brings so many people together will also make us meet our friends. 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 gratitude, it immediately crosses our mind. How often can we meet some one to whom we owe gratitude, 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 passions are good or bad qualities, only intensified. 301. Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once. 302. Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is

the first thing to make them really dangerous. 303. Passion 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 God 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.

VI 306. The secret places in the way of life may not and cannot be revealed: there are rocks of offence on which every traveller must stumble. But the poet points to where they are. 307. It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of this world were foolishness with God. 308. The true is Godlike: we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations. 309. The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master. 310. In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher. 311. What belongs to a man, he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it

away. 312. Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us; and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry. 313. It is undeniable that in the Reformation the human mind tried to free itself; and the renaissance of Greek and Roman antiquity brought about the wish and longing for a freer, more seemly, and elegant life. The movement was favoured in no small degree by the fact that men’s hearts aimed at returning to a certain simple state of nature, while the imagination sought to concentrate itself. 314. The Saints were all at once driven from heaven; and senses, thought, and heart were turned from a divine mother with a tender child, to the grown man doing good and suffering evil, who was later transfigured into a being half-divine in its nature, and then recognised and honoured as God himself. He stood against a background where the Creator had opened out the universe; a spiritual influence went out from him; his sufferings were adopted as an example, and his transfiguration was the pledge of everlastingness. 315. As a coal is revived by incense, so prayer revives the hopes of the heart. 316. From a strict point of view we must have a reformation of ourselves every day, and protest against others, even though it be in no religious sense. 317. It should be our earnest endeavour to use words coinciding as closely as possible with what we feel, see, think, experience, imagine, and reason. It is an endeavour which we cannot evade, and which is daily to be renewed. Let every man examine himself, and he will find this a much harder task than he might suppose; for, unhappily, a man usually takes words as mere make-shifts; his knowledge and his thought are in most cases better than his

method of expression. False, irrelevant, and futile ideas may arise in ourselves and others, or find their way into us from without. Let us persist in the effort to remove them as far as we can, by plain and honest purpose. 318. As we grow older, the ordeals grow greater. 319. Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone. 320. A man is not deceived by others, he deceives himself. 321. Laws are all made by old people and by men. Youths and women want the exceptions, old people the rules. 322. It is not the intelligent man who rules, but intelligence; not the wise man, but wisdom. 323. To praise a man is to put oneself on his level. 324. It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do. 325. Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian antiquities are never more than curiosities; it is well to make acquaintance with them; but in point of moral and æsthetic culture they can help us little. 326. The German runs no greater danger than to advance with and by the example of his neighbours. There is perhaps no nation that is fitter for the process of self-development; so that it has proved of the greatest advantage to Germany to have obtained the notice of the world so late. 327. Even men of insight do not see that they try to explain things which lie at the foundation of our experience, and in which we must simply acquiesce. Yet still the attempt may have its advantage, as otherwise we should break off our researches too soon.

328. From this time forward, if a man does not apply himself to some art or handiwork, he will be in a bad way. In the rapid changes of the world, knowledge is no longer a furtherance; by the time a man has taken note of everything, he has lost himself. 329. Besides, in these days the world forces universal culture upon us, and so we need not trouble ourselves further about it; we must appropriate some particular culture. 330. The greatest difficulties lie where we do not look for them. 331. Our interest in public events is mostly the merest philistinism. 332. Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day. 333. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt! This is so strange an utterance, that it could only have come from one who fancied himself autochthonous. The man who looks upon it as an honour to be descended from wise ancestors, will allow them at least as much common-sense as he allows himself. 334. Strictly speaking, everything depends upon a man’s intentions; where these exist, thoughts appear; and as the intentions are, so are the thoughts. 335. If a man lives long in a high position, he does not, it is true, experience all that a man can experience; but he experiences things like them, and perhaps some things that have no parallel elsewhere.

VII 336. The first and last thing that is required of genius is love of truth. 337. To be and remain true to oneself and others, is to possess the noblest attribute of the greatest talents. 338. Great talents are the best means of conciliation.

339. The action of genius is in a way ubiquitous: towards general truths before experience, and towards particular truths after it. 340. An active scepticism is one which constantly aims at overcoming itself, and arriving by means of regulated experience at a kind of conditioned certainty. 341. The general nature of the sceptical mind is its tendency to inquire whether any particular predicate really attaches to any particular object; and the purpose of the inquiry is safely to apply in practice what has thus been discovered and proved. 342. The mind endowed with active powers and keeping with a practical object to the task that lies nearest, is the worthiest there is on earth. 343. Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man. 344. Not only what is born with him, but also what he acquires, makes the man. 345. A man is well equipped for all the real necessities of life if he trusts his senses, and so cultivates them that they remain worthy of being trusted. 346. The senses do not deceive; it is the judgment that deceives. 347. The lower animal is taught by its organs; man teaches his organs, and dominates them. 348. All direct invitation to live up to ideals is of doubtful value, particularly if addressed to women. Whatever the reason of it may be, a man of any importance collects round him a seraglio of a more or less religious, moral, and æsthetic character. 349. When a great idea enters the world as a Gospel, it becomes an offence to the multitude, which stagnates in pedantry; and to those who have much learning but little depth, it is folly.

350. Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realised, it is hardly distinguishable from phantasy and phantastery. 351. This it is that has been called, in a good and in a bad sense, ideology; and this is why the ideologist is so repugnant to the hard-working, practical man of every day. 352. You may recognise the utility of an idea, and yet not quite understand how to make a perfect use of it. 353. Credo Deum! That is a fine, a worthy thing to say; but to recognise God where and as he reveals himself, is the only true bliss on earth. 354. Kepler said: ‘My wish is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside me.’ The good man was not aware that in that very moment the divine in him stood in the closest connection with the divine in the Universe. 355. What is predestination? It is this: God is mightier and wiser than we are, and so he does with us as he pleases. 356. Toleration should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him. 357. Faith, Love, and Hope once felt, in a quiet sociable hour, a plastic impulse in their nature; they worked together and created a lovely image, a Pandora in the higher sense, Patience. 358. ‘I stumbled over the roots of the tree which I planted.’ It must have been an old forester who said that. 359. A leaf blown by the wind often looks like a bird. 360. Does the sparrow know how the stork feels? 361. Lamps make oil-spots, and candles want snuffing; it is only the light of

heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain. 362. If you miss the first button-hole, you will not succeed in buttoning up your coat. 363. A burnt child dreads the fire; an old man who has often been singed is afraid of warming himself. 364. It is not worth while to do anything for the world that we have with us, as the existing order may in a moment pass away. It is for the past and the future that we must work: for the past, to acknowledge its merits; for the future, to try to increase its value. 365. Let every man ask himself with which of his faculties he can and will somehow influence his age. 366. Let no one think that people have waited for him as for the Saviour. 367. Character in matters great and small consists in a man steadily pursuing the things of which he feels himself capable. 368. The man who wants to be active and has to be so, need only think of what is fitting at the moment, and he will make his way without difficulty. This is where women have the advantage, if they understand it. 369. The moment is a kind of public; a man must deceive it into believing that he is doing something; then it leaves us alone to go our way in secret; whereat its grandchildren cannot fail to be astonished. 370. There are men who put their knowledge in the place of insight. 371. In some states, as a consequence of the violent movements experienced in almost all directions, there has come about a certain overpressure in the system of education, the harm of which will be more generally felt hereafter; though even now it is perfectly well recognised by capable and honest authorities. Capable men live in a sort of despair over the fact that they are bound by the rules of their office to teach and

communicate things which they look upon as useless and hurtful. 372. There is no sadder sight than the direct striving after the unconditioned in this thoroughly conditioned world. 373. Before the Revolution it was all effort; afterwards it all changed to demand. 374. Can a nation become ripe? That is a strange question. I would answer, Yes! if all the men could be born thirty years of age. But as youth will always be too forward and old age too backward, the really mature man is always hemmed in between them, and has to resort to strange devices to make his way through. 375. It does not look well for monarchs to speak through the press, for power should act and not talk. The projects of the liberal party always bear being read: the man who is overpowered may at least express his views in speech, because he cannot act. When Mazarin was shown some satirical songs on a new tax, ‘Let them sing,’ said he, ‘as long as they pay.’ 376. Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one’s personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one’s individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whom it befits. 377. The most important matters of feeling as of reason, of experience as of reflection, should be treated of only by word of mouth. The spoken word at once dies if it is not kept alive by some other word following on it and suited to the hearer. Observe what happens in social converse. If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation. With the written word the case is still worse. No one cares to read anything to which he is not already to some extent accustomed: he demands the known and the familiar under an altered form. Still the written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

378. Both what is reasonable and what is unreasonable have to undergo the like contradiction. 379. Dialectic is the culture of the spirit of contradiction, which is given to man that he may learn to perceive the differences between things. 380. With those who are really of like disposition with himself a man cannot long be at variance; he will always come to an agreement again. With those who are really of adverse disposition, he may in vain try to preserve harmony; he will always come to a separation again. 381. Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and pay no attention to ours. 382. People who contradict and dispute should now and then remember that not every mode of speech is intelligible to every one. 383. Every man hears only what he understands. 384. I am quite prepared to find that many a reader will disagree with me; but when he has a thing before him in black and white, he must let it stand. Another reader may perhaps take up the very same copy and agree with me. 385. The truest liberality is appreciation. 386. For the strenuous man the difficulty is to recognise the merits of elder contemporaries and not let himself be hindered by their defects. 387. Some men think about the defects of their friends, and there is nothing to be gained by it. I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage. 388. There are many men who fancy they understand whatever they experience. 389. The public must be treated like women: they must be told absolutely nothing but what they like to hear.

390. Every age of man has a certain philosophy answering to it. The child comes out as a realist: he finds himself as convinced that pears and apples exist as that he himself exists. The youth in a storm of inner passion is forced to turn his gaze within, and feel in advance what he is going to be: he is changed into an idealist. But the man has every reason to become a sceptic: he does well to doubt whether the means he has chosen to his end are the right ones. Before and during action he has every reason for keeping his understanding mobile, that he may not afterwards have to grieve over a false choice. Yet when he grows old he will always confess himself a mystic: he sees that so much seems to depend on chance; that folly succeeds and wisdom fails; that good and evil fortune are brought unexpectedly to the same level; so it is and so it has been, and old age acquiesces in that which is and was and will be. 391. When a man grows old he must consciously remain at a certain stage. 392. It does not become an old man to run after the fashion, either in thought or in dress. But he must know where he is, and what the others are aiming at. What is called fashion is the tradition of the moment. All tradition carries with it a certain necessity for people to put themselves on a level with it. 393. We have long been busy with the critique of reason. I should like to see a critique of common-sense. It would be a real benefit to mankind if we could convincingly prove to the ordinary intelligence how far it can go; and that is just as much as it fully requires for life on this earth. 394. The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect: they both together make up the indivisible phenomenon. 395. All practical men try to bring the world under their hands; all thinkers, under their heads. How far each succeeds, they may both see for themselves. 396. Shall we say that a man thinks only when he cannot think out that of which he is thinking?

397. What is invention or discovery? It is the conclusion of what we were looking for. 398. It is with history as with nature and with everything of any depth, it may be past, present, or future: the further we seriously pursue it, the more difficult are the problems that appear. The man who is not afraid of them, but attacks them bravely, has a feeling of higher culture and greater ease the further he progresses. 399. Every phenomenon is within our reach if we treat it as an inclined plane, which is of easy ascent, though the thick end of the wedge may be steep and inaccessible. 400. If a man would enter upon some course of knowledge, he must either be deceived or deceive himself, unless external necessity irresistibly determines him. Who would become a physician if, at one and the same time, he saw before him all the horrible sights that await him? 401. How many years must a man do nothing before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it! 402. Duty: where a man loves what he commands himself to do.

LITERATURE AND ART 403. When Madame Roland was on the scaffold, she asked for pen and paper, to note the peculiar thoughts that hovered about her on the last journey. It is a pity they were refused, for in a tranquil mind thoughts rise up at the close of life hitherto unthinkable; like blessed inward voices, alighting in glory on the summits of the past. 404. Literature is a fragment of fragments: the least of what happened and was spoken, has been written; and of the things that have been written, very few have been preserved. 405. And yet, with all the fragmentary nature of literature, we find thousand fold repetition; which shows how limited is man’s mind and destiny. 406. Excellent work is unfathomable, approach it as you will. 407. It is not language in itself which is correct or forcible or elegant, but the mind that is embodied in it; and so it is not for a man to determine whether he will give his calculations or speeches or poems the desired qualities: the question is whether Nature has given him the intellectual and moral qualities which fit him for the work,—the intellectual power of observation and insight, the moral power of repelling the evil spirits that might hinder him from paying respect to truth. 408. The appeal to posterity springs from the pure, strong feeling of the existence of something imperishable; something that, even though it be not at once recognised, will in the end be gratified by finding the minority turn into a majority. 409. When a new literature succeeds, it obscures the effect of an earlier one, and its own effect predominates; so that it is well, from time to time, to look back. What is original in us is best preserved and quickened if we do not lose sight of those who have gone before us.

410. The most original authors of modern times are so, not because they produce what is new, but only because they are able to say things the like of which seem never to have been said before. 411. Thus the best sign of originality lies in taking up a subject and then developing it so fully as to make every one confess that he would hardly have found so much in it. 412. There are many thoughts that come only from general culture, like buds from green branches. When roses bloom, you see them blooming everywhere. 413. ‘Lucidity is a due distribution of light and shade.’ Hamann. 414. A man who has no acquaintance with foreign languages knows nothing of his own. 415. We must remember that there are many men who, without being productive, are anxious to say something important, and the results are most curious. 416. Deep and earnest thinkers are in a difficult position with regard to the public. 417. Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something. 418. An author can show no greater respect for his public than by never bringing it what it expects, but what he himself thinks right and proper in that stage of his own and others’ culture in which for the time he finds himself. 419. The so-called Nature-poets are men of active talent, with a fresh stimulus and reaction from an over-cultured, stagnant, mannered epoch of art. They cannot avoid commonplace. 420. Productions are now possible which, without being bad, have no value.

They have no value, because they contain nothing; and they are not bad, because a general form of good-workmanship is present to the author’s mind. 421. All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible. 422. A romance is a subjective epic in which the author begs leave to treat the world after his own ideas. The only question is, whether he has any ideas; the rest will follow of itself. 423. Subjective or so-called sentimental poetry has now been admitted to an equality with objective and descriptive. This was inevitable; because otherwise the whole of modern poetry would have to be discarded. It is now obvious that when men of truly poetical genius appear, they will describe more of the particular feelings of the inner life than of the general facts of the great life of the world. This has already taken place to such a degree that we have a poetry without figures of speech, which can by no means be refused all praise. 424. Superstition is the poetry of life, and so it does not hurt the poet to be superstitious. 425. That glorious hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, is really an appeal to genius. That is why it speaks so powerfully to men of intellect and power. 426. Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original. 427. A Spinoza in poetry becomes a Machiavelli in philosophy. 428. Against the three unities there is nothing to be said, if the subject is very simple; but there are times when thrice three unities, skilfully interwoven, produce a very pleasant effect. 429. The sentimentality of the English is humorous and tender; of the

French, popular and pathetic; of the Germans, naïve and realistic. 430. Mysticism is the scholastic of the heart, the dialectic of the feelings. 431. If a man sets out to reproach an author with obscurity, he should first of all examine his own mind, to see if he is himself all clearness within. Twilight makes even plain writing illegible. 432. It is with books as with new acquaintances. At first we are highly delighted, if we find a general agreement,—if we are pleasantly moved on any of the chief sides of our existence. With a closer acquaintance differences come to light; and then reasonable conduct mainly consists in not shrinking back at once, as may happen in youth, but in keeping firm hold of the things in which we agree, and being quite clear about the things in which we differ, without on that account desiring any union. 433. In psychological reflection the greatest difficulty is this: that inner and outer must always be viewed in parallel lines, or, rather, interwoven. It is a continual systole and diastole, an inspiration and an expiration of the living soul. If this cannot be put into words, it should be carefully marked and noted. 434. My relations with Schiller rested on the decided tendency of both of us towards a single aim, and our common activity rested on the diversity of the means by which we endeavoured to attain that aim. 435. Once when a slight difference was mentioned between us, of which I was reminded by a passage in a letter of his, I made the following reflections: There is a great difference between a poet seeking the particular for the universal, and seeing the universal in the particular. The one gives rise to Allegory, where the particular serves only as instance or example of the general; but the other is the true nature of Poetry, namely, the expression of the particular without any thought of, or reference to, the general. If a man grasps the particular vividly, he also grasps the general, without being aware of it at the time; or he may make the discovery long afterwards. 436. There may be eclectic philosophers, but not an eclectic philosophy.

437. But every one is an eclectic who, out of the things that surround and take place about him, appropriates what is suited to his nature; and this is what is meant by culture and progress, in matters of theory or practice. 438. Various maxims of the ancients, which we are wont to repeat again and again, had a meaning quite different from that which is apt to attach to them in later times. 439. The saying that no one who is unacquainted with or a stranger to geometry should enter the philosopher’s school, does not mean that a man must become a mathematician to attain the wisdom of the world. 440. Geometry is here taken in its primary elements, such as are contained in Euclid and laid before every beginner; and then it is the most perfect propædeutic and introduction to philosophy. 441. When a boy begins to understand that an invisible point must always come before a visible one, and that the shortest way between two points is a straight line, before he can draw it on his paper with a pencil, he experiences a certain pride and pleasure. And he is not wrong; for he has the source of all thought opened to him; idea and reality, potentia et actu, are become clear; the philosopher has no new discovery to bring him; as a mathematician, he has found the basis of all thought for himself. 442. And if we turn to that significant utterance, Know thyself, we must not explain it in an ascetic sense. It is in nowise the self-knowledge of our modern hypochondrists, humorists, and self-tormentors. It simply means: pay some attention to yourself; take note of yourself; so that you may know how you come to stand towards those like you and towards the world. This involves no psychological torture; every capable man knows and feels what it means. It is a piece of good advice which every one will find of the greatest advantage in practice. 443. Let us remember how great the ancients were; and especially how the Socratic school holds up to us the source and standard of all life and action, and bids us not indulge in empty speculation, but live and do.

444. So long as our scholastic education takes us back to antiquity and furthers the study of the Greek and Latin languages, we may congratulate ourselves that these studies, so necessary for the higher culture, will never disappear. 445. If we set our gaze on antiquity and earnestly study it, in the desire to form ourselves thereon, we get the feeling as if it were only then that we really became men. 446. The pedagogue, in trying to write and speak Latin, has a higher and grander idea of himself than would be permissible in ordinary life. 447. In the presence of antiquity, the mind that is susceptible to poetry and art feels itself placed in the most pleasing ideal state of nature; and even to this day the Homeric hymns have the power of freeing us, at any rate, for moments, from the frightful burden which the tradition of several thousand years has rolled upon us. 448. There is no such thing as patriotic art and patriotic science. Both art and science belong, like all things great and good, to the whole world, and can be furthered only by a free and general interchange of ideas among contemporaries, with continual reference to the heritage of the past as it is known to us. 449. Poetical talent is given to peasant as well as to knight; all that is required is that each shall grasp his position and treat it worthily. 450. An historic sense means a sense so cultured that, in valuing the deserts and merits of its own time, it takes account also of the past. 451. The best that history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses. 452. The historian’s duty is twofold: first towards himself, then towards his readers. As regards himself, he must carefully examine into the things that could have happened; and, for the reader’s sake, he must determine what actually did happen. His action towards himself is a matter between himself and his colleagues; but the public must not see into the secret that there is

little in history which can be said to be positively determined. 453. The historian’s duty is to separate the true from the false, the certain from the uncertain, and the doubtful from that which cannot be accepted. 454. It is seldom that any one of great age becomes historical to himself, and finds his contemporaries become historical to him, so that he neither cares nor is able to argue with any one. 455. On a closer examination of the matter, it will be found that the historian does not easily grasp history as something historical. In whatever age he may live, the historian always writes as though he himself had been present at the time of which he treats, instead of simply narrating the facts and movements of that time. Even the mere chronicler only points more or less to his own limitations, or the peculiarities of his town or monastery or age. 456. We really learn only from those books which we cannot criticise. The author of a book which we could criticise would have to learn from us. 457. That is the reason why the Bible will never lose its power; because, as long as the world lasts, no one can stand up and say: I grasp it as a whole and understand all the parts of it. But we say humbly: as a whole it is worthy of respect, and in all its parts it is applicable. 458. There is and will be much discussion as to the use and harm of circulating the Bible. One thing is clear to me: mischief will result, as heretofore, by using it phantastically as a system of dogma; benefit, as heretofore, by a loving acceptance of its teachings. 459. I am convinced that the Bible will always be more beautiful the more it is understood; the more, that is, we see and observe that every word which we take in a general sense and apply specially to ourselves, had, under certain circumstances of time and place, a peculiar, special, and directly individual reference. 460. The incurable evil of religious controversy is that while one party

wants to connect the highest interest of humanity with fables and phrases, the other tries to rest it on things that satisfy no one. 461. If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature. 462. The classical is health; and the romantic, disease. 463. Ovid remained classical even in exile: it is not in himself that he sees misfortune, but in his banishment from the metropolis of the world. 464. The romantic is already fallen into its own abysm. It is hard to imagine anything more degraded than the worst of the new productions. 465. Bodies which rot while they are still alive, and are edified by the detailed contemplation of their own decay; dead men who remain in the world for the ruin of others, and feed their death on the living,—to this have come our makers of literature. When the same thing happened in antiquity, it was only as a strange token of some rare disease; but with the moderns the disease has become endemic and epidemic. 466. Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt. 467. What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves! 468. The things that are true, good, excellent, are simple and always alike, whatever their appearance may be. But the error that we blame is extremely manifold and varying; it is in conflict not only with the good and the true, but also with itself; it is self-contradictory. Thus it is that the words of blame in our literature must necessarily outnumber the words of praise. 469. The Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was of a simple and positive character, express approval more often than disapproval. With the Latin writers it is the contrary; and the more poetry and the arts of speech decay, the more will blame swell and praise shrink.

470. ‘What are tragedies but the versified passions of people who make Heaven knows what out of the external world?’ 471. There are certain empirical enthusiasts who are quite right in showing their enthusiasm over new productions that are good; but they are as ecstatic as if there were no other good work in the world at all. 472. In Sakontala the poet appears in his highest function. As the representative of the most natural condition of things, the finest mode of life, the purest moral endeavour, the worthiest majesty, and the most solemn worship, he ventures on common and ridiculous contrasts. 473. Shakespeare’s Henry IV. If everything were lost that has ever been preserved to us of this kind of writing, the arts of poetry and rhetoric could be completely restored out of this one play. 474. Shakespeare’s finest dramas are wanting here and there in facility: they are something more than they should be, and for that very reason indicate the great poet. 475. Shakespeare is dangerous reading for budding talents: he compels them to reproduce him, and they fancy they are producing themselves. 476. Yorick Sterne was the finest spirit that ever worked. To read him is to attain a fine feeling of freedom; his humour is inimitable, and it is not every kind of humour that frees the soul. 477. The peculiar value of so-called popular ballads is that their motives are drawn direct from nature. This, however, is an advantage of which the poet of culture could also avail himself, if he knew how to do it. 478. But in popular ballads there is always this advantage, that in the art of saying things shortly uneducated men are always better skilled than those who are in the strict sense of the word educated. 479. Gemüth = Heart. The translator must proceed until he reaches the untranslatable; and then only will he have an idea of the foreign nation and

the foreign tongue. 480. When we say of a landscape that it has a romantic character, it is the secret feeling of the sublime taking the form of the past, or, what is the same thing, of solitude, absence, or seclusion. 481. The Beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which, without its presence, would never have been revealed. 482. It is said: Artist, study nature! But it is no trifle to develop the noble out of the commonplace, or beauty out of uniformity. 483 When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art. 484. For all other Arts we must make some allowance; but to Greek Art alone we are always debtors. 485. There is no surer way of evading the world than by Art; and no surer way of uniting with it than by Art. 486. Even in the moments of highest happiness and deepest misery we need the Artist. 487. False tendencies of the senses are a kind of desire after realism, always better than that false tendency which expresses itself as idealistic longing. 488. The dignity of Art appears perhaps most conspicuously in Music; for in Music there is no material to be deducted. It is wholly form and intrinsic value, and it raises and ennobles all that it expresses. 489. It is only by Art, and especially by Poetry, that the imagination is regulated. Nothing is more frightful than imagination without taste. 490. If we were to despise Art on the ground that it is an imitation of Nature, it might be answered that Nature also imitates much else; further, that Art does not exactly imitate that which can be seen by the eyes, but

goes back to that element of reason of which Nature consists and according to which Nature acts. 491. Further, the Arts also produce much out of themselves, and, on the other hand, add much where Nature fails in perfection, in that they possess beauty in themselves. So it was that Pheidias could sculpture a god although he had nothing that could be seen by the eye to imitate, but grasped the appearance which Zeus himself would have if he were to come before our eyes. 492. Art rests upon a kind of religious sense: it is deeply and ineradicably in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in hand with Religion. 493. A noble philosopher spoke of architecture as frozen music; and it was inevitable that many people should shake their heads over his remark. We believe that no better repetition of this fine thought can be given than by calling architecture a speechless music. 494. Art is essentially noble; therefore the artist has nothing to fear from a low or common subject. Nay, by taking it up, he ennobles it; and so it is that we see the greatest artists boldly exercising their sovereign rights. 495. In every artist there is a germ of daring, without which no talent is conceivable. 496. All the artists who are already known to me from so many sides, I propose to consider exclusively from the ethical side; to explain from the subject-matter and method of their work the part played therein by time and place, nation and master, and their own indestructible personality; to mould them to what they became and to preserve them in what they were. 497. Art is a medium of what no tongue can utter; and thus it seems a piece of folly to try to convey its meaning afresh by means of words. But, by trying to do so, the understanding gains; and this, again, benefits the faculty in practice. 498. An artist who produces valuable work is not always able to give an

account of his own or others’ performances. 499. We know of no world except in relation to mankind; and we wish for no Art that does not bear the mark of this relation. 500. Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained. 501. Blunt naïvety, stubborn vigour, scrupulous observance of rule, and any other epithets which may apply to older German Art, are a part of every earlier and simpler artistic method. The older Venetians, Florentines, and others had it all too. 502. Because Albrecht Dürer, with his incomparable talent, could never rise to the idea of the symmetry of beauty, or even to the thought of a fitting conformity to the object in view, are we never to spurn the ground! 503. Albrecht Dürer had the advantage of a very profound realistic perception, an affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions. He was kept back by a gloomy phantasy, devoid both of form and foundation. 504. It would be interesting to show how Martin Schön stands near him, and how the merits of German Art were restricted to these two; and useful also to show that it was not evening every day. 505. In every Italian school the butterfly breaks loose from the chrysalis. 506. After Klopstock released us from rhyme, and Voss gave us models of prose, are we to make doggerel again like Hans Sachs? 507. Let us be many-sided! Turnips are good, but they are best mixed with chestnuts. And these two noble products of the earth grow far apart. 508. In every kind of Art there is a degree of excellence which may be reached, so to speak, by the mere use of one’s own natural talents. But at the same time it is impossible to go beyond that point, unless Art comes to one’s aid.

509. In the presence of Nature even moderate talent is always possessed of insight; hence drawings from Nature that are at all carefully done always give pleasure. 510. To make many sketches issue at last in a complete work is something that not even the best artists always achieve. 511. In the sphere of true Art there is no preparatory school, but there is a way of preparation; and the best preparation is the interest of the most insignificant pupil in the work of the master. Colour-grinders have often made excellent painters. 512. If an artist grasps Nature aright and contrives to give its form a nobler, freer grace, no one will understand the source of his inspiration, and every one will swear that he has taken it from the antique. 513. In studying the human form, let the painter reject what is exaggerated, false, and mechanical; but let him learn to grasp of what infinite grace the human body is capable. 514. Kant taught us the critique of the reason. We must have a critique of the senses if Art in general, and especially German Art, is ever to regain its tone and move forward on the path of life and happiness.

SCIENCE 515. In the sphere of natural science let us remember that we have always to deal with an insoluble problem. Let us prove keen and honest in attending to anything which is in any way brought to our notice, most of all when it does not fit in with our previous ideas. For it is only thereby that we perceive the problem, which does indeed lie in nature, but still more in man. 516. A man cannot well stand by himself, and so he is glad to join a party; because if he does not find rest there, he at any rate finds quiet and safety. 517. It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student. 518. In the history of science and throughout the whole course of its progress we see certain epochs following one another more or less rapidly. Some important view is expressed, it may be original or only revived; sooner or later it receives recognition; fellow workers spring up; the outcome of it finds its way into the schools; it is taught and handed down; and we observe, unhappily, that it does not in the least matter whether the view be true or false. In either case its course is the same; in either case it comes in the end to be a mere phrase, a lifeless word stamped on the memory. 519. First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others. 520. Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words. We may surmise, or even see quite well, that such theories are make-shifts; but do not passion and partyspirit love a make-shift at all times? And rightly, too, because they stand in so much need of it. 521. It is difficult to know how to treat the errors of the age. If a man

oppose them, he stands alone; if he surrender to them, they bring him neither joy nor credit. 522. There are some hundred Christian sects, every one of them acknowledging God and the Lord in its own way, without troubling themselves further about one another. In the study of nature, nay, in every study, things must of necessity come to the same pass. For what is the meaning of every one speaking of toleration, and trying to prevent others from thinking and expressing themselves after their own fashion? 523. To communicate knowledge by means of analogy appears to me a process equally useful and pleasant. The analogous case is not there to force itself on the attention or prove anything; it offers a comparison with some other case, but is not in union with it. Several analogous cases do not join to form a seried row: they are like good society, which always suggests more than it grants. 524. To err is to be as though truth did not exist. To lay bare the error to oneself and others is retrospective discovery. 525. With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organised afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional. 526. When we find facts within our knowledge exhibited by some new method, or even, it may be, described in a foreign language, they receive a peculiar charm of novelty and wear a fresh air. 527. If two masters of the same art differ in their statement of it, in all likelihood the insoluble problem lies midway between them. 528. The orbits of certainties touch one another; but in the interstices there is room enough for error to go forth and prevail. 529. We more readily confess to errors, mistakes, and shortcomings in our conduct than in our thought.

530. And the reason of it is that the conscience is humble and even takes a pleasure in being ashamed. But the intellect is proud, and if forced to recant is driven to despair. 531. This also explains how it is that truths which have been recognised are at first tacitly admitted, and then gradually spread, so that the very thing which was obstinately denied appears at last as something quite natural. 532. Ignorant people raise questions which were answered by the wise thousands of years ago. 533. When a man sees a phenomenon before him, his thoughts often range beyond it; when he hears it only talked about, he has no thoughts at all. 534. Authority. Man cannot exist without it, and yet it brings in its train just as much of error as of truth. It perpetuates one by one things which should pass away one by one; it rejects that which should be preserved and allows it to pass away; and it is chiefly to blame for mankind’s want of progress. 535. Authority—the fact, namely, that something has already happened or been said or decided, is of great value; but it is only a pedant who demands authority for everything. 536. An old foundation is worthy of all respect, but it must not take from us the right to build afresh wherever we will. 537. Our advice is that every man should remain in the path he has struck out for himself, and refuse to be overawed by authority, hampered by prevalent opinion, or carried away by fashion. 538. The various branches of knowledge always tend as a whole to stray away from life, and return thither only by a roundabout way. 539. For they are, in truth, text-books of life: they gather outer and inner experiences into a general and connected whole. 540. An important fact, an ingenious aperçu, occupies a very great number

of men, at first only to make acquaintance with it; then to understand it; and afterwards to work it out and carry it further. 541. On the appearance of anything new the mass of people ask: What is the use of it? And they are not wrong. For it is only through the use of anything that they can perceive its value. 542. The truly wise ask what the thing is in itself and in relation to other things, and do not trouble themselves about the use of it,—in other words, about the way in which it may be applied to the necessities of existence and what is already known. This will soon be discovered by minds of a very different order—minds that feel the joy of living, and are keen, adroit, and practical. 543. Every investigator must before all things look upon himself as one who is summoned to serve on a jury. He has only to consider how far the statement of the case is complete and clearly set forth by the evidence. Then he draws his conclusion and gives his vote, whether it be that his opinion coincides with that of the foreman or not. 544. And in acting thus he remains equally at ease whether the majority agree with him or he finds himself in a minority. For he has done what he could: he has expressed his convictions; and he is not master of the minds or hearts of others. 545. In the world of science, however, these sentiments have never been of much account. There everything depends on making opinion prevail and dominate; few men are really independent; the majority draws the individual after it. 546. The history of philosophy, of science, of religion, all shows that opinions spread in masses, but that that always comes to the front which is more easily grasped, that is to say, is most suited and agreeable to the human mind in its ordinary condition. Nay, he who has practised selfculture in the higher sense may always reckon upon meeting an adverse majority.

547. There is much that is true which does not admit of being calculated; just as there are a great many things that cannot be brought to the test of a decisive experiment. 548. It is just for this that man stands so high, that what could not otherwise be brought to light should be brought to light in him. What is a musical string, and all its mechanical division, in comparison with the musician’s ear? May we not also say, what are the elementary phenomena of nature itself compared with man, who must control and modify them all before he can in any way assimilate them to himself? 549. To a new truth there is nothing more hurtful than an old error. 550. The ultimate origin of things is completely beyond our faculties; hence when we see anything come into being, we look upon it as having been already there. This is why we find the theory of emboîtement intelligible. 551. There are many problems in natural science on which we cannot fittingly speak unless we call metaphysics to our aid; but not the wisdom of the schools, which consists in mere verbiage. It is that which was before physics, exists with it, and will be after it. 552. Since men are really interested in nothing but their own opinions, every one who puts forward an opinion looks about him right and left for means of strengthening himself and others in it. A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it; whether it be to dazzle others with it as a kind of half-truth, or to employ it as a stopgap for effecting an apparent union between things that have been disjointed. This experience at first caused me annoyance, and then sorrow; and now it is a source of mischievous satisfaction. I have pledged myself never again to expose a proceeding of this kind. 553. Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into

fruitful knowledge. It is a revelation working from within on the outer world, and lets a man feel that he is made in the image of God. It is a synthesis of World and Mind, giving the most blessed assurance of the eternal harmony of things. 554. A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it. 555. There are pedants who are also rascals, and they are the worst of all. 556. A man does not need to have seen or experienced everything himself. But if he is to commit himself to another’s experiences and his way of putting them, let him consider that he has to do with three things—the object in question and two subjects. 557. The supreme achievement would be to see that stating a fact is starting a theory. 558. If I acquiesce at last in some ultimate fact of nature, it is, no doubt, only resignation; but it makes a great difference whether the resignation takes place at the limits of human faculty, or within the hypothetical boundaries of my own narrow individuality. 559. If we look at the problems raised by Aristotle, we are astonished at his gift of observation. What wonderful eyes the Greeks had for many things! Only they committed the mistake of being over-hasty, of passing straightway from the phenomenon to the explanation of it, and thereby produced certain theories that are quite inadequate. But this is the mistake of all times, and still made in our own day. 560. Hypotheses are cradle-songs by which the teacher lulls his scholars to sleep. The thoughtful and honest observer is always learning more and more of his limitations; he sees that the further knowledge spreads, the more numerous are the problems that make their appearance. 561. Our mistake is that we doubt what is certain and want to establish what is uncertain. My maxim in the study of Nature is this: hold fast what is

certain and keep a watch on what is uncertain. 562. What a master a man would be in his own subject if he taught nothing useless! 563. The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known. 564. If many a man did not feel obliged to repeat what is untrue, because he has said it once, the world would have been quite different. 565. Every man looks at the world lying ready before him, ordered and fashioned into a complete whole, as after all but an element out of which his endeavour is to create a special world suited to himself. Capable men lay hold of the world without hesitation and try to shape their course as best they can; others dally over it, and some doubt even of their own existence. The man who felt the full force of this fundamental truth would dispute with no one, but look upon another’s mode of thought equally with his own, as merely a phenomenon. For we find almost daily that one man can think with ease what another cannot possibly think at all; and that, too, not in matters which might have some sort of effect upon their common weal or woe, but in things which cannot touch them at all. 566. There is nothing more odious than the majority; it consists of a few powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them, without in the least knowing their own mind. 567. When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in modern times, I seem to myself like a traveller going eastwards at dawn, and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also with impatience; looking forward with longing to the advent of the full and final light, but, nevertheless, having to turn away his eyes when the sun appeared, unable to bear the splendour he had awaited with so much desire. 568. We praise the eighteenth century for concerning itself chiefly with analysis. The task remaining to the nineteenth is to discover the false

syntheses which prevail, and to analyse their contents anew. 569. A school may be regarded as a single individual who talks to himself for a hundred years, and takes an extraordinary pleasure in his own being, however foolish and silly it may be. 570. In science it is a service of the highest merit to seek out those fragmentary truths attained by the ancients, and to develop them further. 571. If a man devotes himself to the promotion of science, he is firstly opposed, and then he is informed that his ground is already occupied. At first men will allow no value to what we tell them, and then they behave as if they knew it all themselves. 572. Nature fills all space with her limitless productivity. If we observe merely our own earth, everything that we call evil and unfortunate is so because Nature cannot provide room for everything that comes into existence, and still less endow it with permanence. 573. Everything that comes into being seeks room for itself and desires duration: hence it drives something else from its place and shortens its duration. 574. There is so much of cryptogamy in phanerogamy that centuries will not decipher it. 575. What a true saying it is that he who wants to deceive mankind must before all things make absurdity plausible. 576. The further knowledge advances, the nearer we come to the unfathomable: the more we know how to use our knowledge, the better we see that the unfathomable is of no practical use. 577. The finest achievement for a man of thought is to have fathomed what may be fathomed, and quietly to revere the unfathomable. 578. The discerning man who acknowledges his limitations is not far off

perfection. 579. There are two things of which a man cannot be careful enough: of obstinacy if he confines himself to his own line of thought; of incompetency, if he goes beyond it. 580. Incompetency is a greater obstacle to perfection than one would think. 581. The century advances; but every individual begins anew. 582. What friends do with us and for us is a real part of our life; for it strengthens and advances our personality. The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen. 283. A man cannot live with every one, and therefore he cannot live for every one. To see this truth aright is to place a high value upon one’s friends, and not to hate or persecute one’s enemies. Nay, there is hardly any greater advantage for a man to gain than to find out, if he can, the merits of his opponents: it gives him a decided ascendency over them. 584. Every one knows how to value what he has attained in life; most of all the man who thinks and reflects in his old age. He has a comfortable feeling that it is something of which no one can rob him. 585. The best metempsychosis is for us to appear again in others. 586. It is very seldom that we satisfy ourselves; all the more consoling is it to have satisfied others. 587. We look back upon our life only as on a thing of broken pieces, because our misses and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have done, and attained. 588. The sympathetic youth sees nothing of this; he reads, enjoys, and uses the youth of one who has gone before him, and rejoices in it with all his

heart, as though he had once been what he now is. 589. Science helps us before all things in this, that it somewhat lightens the feeling of wonder with which Nature fills us; then, however, as life becomes more and more complex, it creates new facilities for the avoidance of what would do us harm and the promotion of what will do us good. 590. It is always our eyes alone, our way of looking at things. Nature alone knows what she means now, and what she had meant in the past.

NATURE: APHORISMS Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we are weary and fall from her arms. She creates new forms without end: what exists now, never was before; what was, comes not again; all is new and yet always the old. We live in the midst of her and are strangers. She speaks to us unceasingly and betrays not her secret. We are always influencing her and yet can do her no violence. Individuality seems to be all her aim, and she cares nought for individuals. She is always building and always destroying, and her workshop is not to be approached. Nature lives in her children only, and the mother, where is she? She is the sole artist,—out of the simplest materials the greatest diversity; attaining, with no trace of effort, the finest perfection, the closest precision, always softly veiled. Each of her works has an essence of its own; every shape that she takes is in idea utterly isolated; and yet all forms one. She plays a drama; whether she sees it herself, we know not; and yet she plays it for us, who stand but a little way off. There is constant life in her, motion and development; and yet she remains where she was. She is eternally changing, nor for a moment does she stand still. Of rest she knows nothing, and to all stagnation she has affixed her curse. She is steadfast; her step is measured, her exceptions rare, her laws immutable. She has thought, and she ponders unceasingly; not as a man, but as Nature. The meaning of the whole she keeps to herself, and no one can learn it of her. Men are all in her, and she in all men. With all she plays a friendly game, and rejoices the more a man wins from her. With many her game is so secret, that she brings it to an end before they are aware of it. Even what is most unnatural is Nature; even the coarsest Philistinism has

something of her genius. Who does not see her everywhere, sees her nowhere aright. She loves herself, and clings eternally to herself with eyes and hearts innumerable. She has divided herself that she may be her own delight. She is ever making new creatures spring up to delight in her, and imparts herself insatiably. She rejoices in illusion. If a man destroys this in himself and others, she punishes him like the hardest tyrant. If he follows her in confidence, she presses him to her heart as it were her child. Her children are numberless. To no one of them is she altogether niggardly; but she has her favourites, on whom she lavishes much, and for whom she makes many a sacrifice. Over the great she has spread the shield of her protection. She spurts forth her creatures out of nothing, and tells them not whence they come and whither they go. They have only to go their way: she knows the path. Her springs of action are few, but they never wear out: they are always working, always manifold. The drama she plays is always new, because she is always bringing new spectators. Life is her fairest invention, and Death is her device for having life in abundance. She envelops man in darkness, and urges him constantly to the light. She makes him dependent on the earth, heavy and sluggish, and always rouses him up afresh. She creates wants, because she loves movement. How marvellous that she gains it all so easily! Every want is a benefit, soon satisfied, soon growing again. If she gives more, it is a new source of desire; but the balance quickly rights itself. Every moment she starts on the longest journeys, and every moment reaches her goal. She amuses herself with a vain show; but to us her play is all-important. She lets every child work at her, every fool judge of her, and thousands pass her by and see nothing; and she has her joy in them all, and in them all finds her account. Man obeys her laws even in opposing them: he works with her even when he wants to work against her.

Everything she gives is found to be good, for first of all she makes it indispensable. She lingers, that we may long for presence; she hurries by, that we may not grow weary of her. Speech or language she has none; but she creates tongues and hearts through which she feels and speaks. Her crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble. She is all things. She rewards herself and punishes herself; and in herself rejoices and is distressed. She is rough and gentle, loving and terrible, powerless and almighty. In her everything is always present. Past or Future she knows not. The Present is her Eternity. She is kind. I praise her with all her works. She is wise and still. No one can force her to explain herself, or frighten her into a gift that she does not give willingly. She is crafty, but for a good end; and it is best not to notice her cunning. She is whole and yet never finished. As she works now, so can she work for ever. To every one she appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a thousand names and terms, and is always the same. She has placed me in this world; she will also lead me out of it. I trust myself to her. She may do with me as she pleases. She will not hate her work. I did not speak of her. No! what is true and what is false, she has spoken it all. Everything is her fault, everything is her merit.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom originally published in 1791 Reflections: Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims originally published in 1794 Maxims and Reflections originally published in 1794 Cover designs by Amanda Shaffer ISBN: 978-1-5040-4451-6 This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. 180 Maiden Lane New York, NY 10038 www.openroadmedia.com

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA

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