Part 19

(11.) Men do not sufficiently take advantage of every opportunity for pleasing other people. When a person accepts a certain post, it seems that he intends to acquire the power of obliging others without using it; nothing is quicker and more readily given than a refusal, whilst nothing is ever granted until after mature reflection.

(12.) Know exactly what you are to expect from men in general, and from each of them in particular, and then mix with the people around you.

(13.) If poverty is the mother of all crimes, lack of intelligence is their father.

(14.) A knave can hardly be a very intelligent man; a clear and far-seeing mind leads to regularity, honesty, and virtue; it is want of sense and penetration which begets obstinacy in wickedness as well as in duplicity; in vain we endeavour to correct such a man by satire; it may describe him to others, but he himself will not know his own picture; it is like scolding a deaf man. It would be well, please gentlemen of sense and culture, and avenge everybody, if a rogue were not so constituted as to be without any feeling whatever.

(15.) There are some vices for which we are indebted to none but ourselves, which are innate in us, and are strengthened by habit; there are others we contract which are foreign to us. Sometimes men are naturally inclined to yield without much difficulty, to be urbane, and to desire to please; but by the treatment they meet from those whom they frequent and on whom they depend, they soon lose all moderation, and even change their disposition; they grow melancholy and peevish to a degree ere this unknown to them; their temper is completely changed, and they are themselves astonished at their being rude and tetchy.

(16.) Some people ask why the whole bulk of mankind does not constitute one nation, and does not like to speak the same language, obey the same laws, and agree among themselves to adopt the same customs and the same worship? For my part, observing how greatly minds, tastes, and sentiments differ, I am astonished to see seven or eight persons, living under the same roof and within the same walls, constitute one family.[549]

(17.) There are some extraordinary fathers, who seem, during the whole course of their lives, to be preparing reasons for their children for being consoled at their deaths.[550]

(18.) Everything is strange in the dispositions, morals, and manners of men: one person who during his whole lifetime has been melancholy, passionate, avaricious, fawning, submissive, laborious, and egotistical, was born lively, peaceable, indolent, ostentatious, and with lofty feelings, abhorring anything base; want, circumstances, and dire necessity have compelled him and caused such a great change. Such a manʼs inmost feelings can really not be described, for too many external things have altered, changed, and upset him, so that he is not exactly what he thinks he is himself or what he appears to be.

(19.) Life is short and tedious, and is wholly spent in wishing; we trust to find rest and enjoyment at some future time, often at an age when our best blessings, youth and health, have already left us. When at last that time has arrived, it surprises us in the midst of fresh desires; we have got no farther when we are attacked by a fever which kills us; if we had been cured, it would only have been to give us more time for other desires.

(20.) A man requesting a favour from another, surrenders himself at discretion to the personage from whom he expects it, but when he is quite sure it will be granted, he temporises, parleys, and capitulates.

(21.) It is so usual for men not to be happy, and so essential for every blessing to be acquired with infinite trouble, that what is obtained easily is looked upon with suspicion. We can hardly understand how anything which costs us so little can be greatly to our advantage, or how by strictly honest means we can so easily obtain what we want; we may think we deserve our success, but we ought very seldom to depend on it.

(22.) A man who says he is not born happy may at least become so by the happiness his friends and relatives enjoy, but envy deprives him even of this last resource.

(23.) Whatever I may somewhere have said,[551] it is, perhaps, wrong to be dejected. Men seem born to misfortune, pain, and poverty, and as few escape this, and as every kind of calamity seems to befall them, they ought to be prepared for every misfortune.

(24.) Men find it so very difficult to make business arrangements, they are so very touchy where their smallest interests are concerned, they are so bristling over with difficulties, so willing to deceive and so unwilling to be deceived, they place so high a value on what belongs to themselves, and are so apt to undervalue what belongs to others, that I admit I cannot understand how and in what way marriages, contracts, acquisitions, conventions, truces, treaties, and alliances are brought about.

(25.) Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.

Knaves easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, neither do they long deceive.

I would rather at any time be considered a fool than a rogue.

We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.

(26.) If there were not so many dupes in this world there would be fewer of those men called shrewd or sharp, who are honoured for having been artful enough in deceiving others during the whole course of their lives, and are proud of having done so. Why should you expect Erophilus not to presume on himself and his shrewdness, whose breach of faith, bad actions, and roguery, instead of doing him any harm, have procured him favours and rewards, even from those whom he has either never served or to whom he has done an ill turn?

(27.) We hear nothing in the squares and in the streets of great cities, and out of the mouths of the passers-by, but such words as “writs, executions, interrogatories, bonds, and pleadings.” Is there not the smallest equity more left in this world? Or is it, on the contrary, full of people who coolly ask for what is not due to them, or who distinctly refuse to pay what they owe?

The invention of legal documents to remind men of what they promised, and to convince them that they did so, is a shame to humanity.

If you suppress passion, interest, and injustice, how quiet would the greatest cities be! The necessities of life, and the means of satisfying them, are the cause of nearly half the difficulties.

(28.) Nothing is of greater assistance to a man for bearing quietly the wrongs done to him by relatives and friends than his reflections on the vices of humanity; on the difficulty men have in being constant, generous, and faithful, or on their loving anything better than their own interests. He knows the extent of their power, and does not require them to penetrate solid bodies, to fly in the air, or to give every one his due; he may dislike mankind in general for having no greater respect for virtue; but he finds excuses for individuals, and even loves them from higher motives, whilst he does his best to require himself as little indulgence as possible.

(29.) There are certain things which we most passionately desire, and of which the mere thought carries us away and throws us into an ecstasy: if we happen to obtain them, we are less sensible of them than we thought we should be, and we enjoy them the less because we aspire to get some of greater importance.

(30.) There exist some evils so terrible and some misfortunes so horrible that we dare not think of them, whilst their very aspect makes us shudder; but if they happen to fall on us, we find ourselves stronger than we imagined; we grapple with our ill luck, and behave better than we expected we should.

(31.) Sometimes a pretty house which we inherit, or a fine horse, or a handsome dog which is given to us, or some hangings, or a clock presented to us, will alleviate a great grief, and make us feel less acutely a great loss.

(32.) Suppose men were to live for ever in this world, I do not think I could discover what more they could do than they do at present.

(33.) If life be wretched, it is hard to bear it; if it be happy, it is horrible to lose it; both come to the same thing.

(34.) There is nothing men are so anxious to keep, and yet are so careless about, as life.

(35.) Irene is at great cost conveyed to Epidaurus;[552] she visits Æsculapius in his temple, and consults him about all her ailings. She complains first that she is weary and excessively fatigued, and the god replies that the long journey she just made is the cause of this; she says that she is not inclined to eat any supper, and the oracle orders her to eat less dinner; she adds she cannot sleep at night, and he prescribes her to lie a-bed by day; she complains of her corpulency, and asks how it can be prevented; the oracle replies she should get up before noon and now and then use her legs to walk; she declares that wine disagrees with her, the oracle bids her drink water; she suffers from indigestion, and he tells her she must diet herself. “My sight begins to fail me,” says Irene. “Use spectacles,” says Æsculapius. “I grow weak,” continues she; “I am not half so strong nor so healthy as I was.” “You grow old,” says the god. “But how,” asks she, “can I get rid of this disease?” “The shortest way to cure it, Irene, is to die, as your mother and grandmother have done.” “Son of Apollo!” exclaimed Irene, “is this all the advice you give me? Is this the skill praised by all, and for which every one reveres you? What rare and secret things did you tell me, and what remedies have you prescribed for me, which I did not know before?” “Why did you not take these, then,” the god replied, “without coming such a long distance to consult me, and shortening your days by such a tedious journey?”[553]

(36.) Death happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives; it is worse to dread it than to suffer it.

(37.) Restlessness, fear, and dejection cannot delay death, but, on the contrary, hasten it; I only question whether man, who is mortal, should indulge in much laughing.

(38.) Whatever is certain in death is slightly alleviated by what is not so infallible; the time when it shall happen is undefined, but it is more or less connected with the infinite, and what we call eternity.

(39.) When we are sighing for the loss of our past blooming youth, which will return no more, let us think that decrepitude will come, when we shall regret the mature age we have reached and do not sufficiently value.

(40.) The fear of old age disturbs us, yet we are not certain of becoming old.

(41.) We hope to grow old, and yet we dread old age; or, in other words, we are willing to live, and afraid to die.

(42.) A man had better yield to nature and fear death, than be engaged in continual conflicts, provide himself with arguments and reflections, and be always combating his own feelings in order not to fear it.

(43.) If some persons died, and others did not die, death would indeed be a terrible affliction.

(44.) A long disease seems to be a halting-place between life and death, that death itself may be a comfort to those who die and to those who are left behind.

(45.) Humanly speaking, there is something good in death, namely, that it puts an end to old age. That death which prevents decrepitude comes more seasonably than that which ends it.

(46.) Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.

(47.) Life is a kind of sleep; old men have slept longer than others, and only begin to wake again when they are to die. If, then, they take a retrospect of the whole course of their lives, they frequently discover neither virtues nor commendable actions to distinguish one year from another; they confound one time of their life with another time, and see nothing of sufficient note by which to measure how long they have lived. They have dreamt in a confused, indistinct, and incoherent way; but, nevertheless, they are aware, as all people who wake up, that they have slept for a long while.

(48.) There are but three events which concern man: birth, life, and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.

(49.) There is a time preceding the power of reasoning, when, like animals, we live by instinct alone, and of which memory retains no vestiges. There is a second period, when reason is developed, formed, and might act, if it were not obscured and partly extinguished by vices of the constitution, and a sequence of passions following one another till the third and last age; reason then, being in its full strength, should produce something; but it is chilled and impaired by years, disease, and sorrow, and rendered useless by the machinery getting old and out of gear; yet these three periods constitute the whole life of man.

(50.) Children are overbearing, supercilious, passionate, envious, inquisitive, egotistical, idle, fickle, timid, intemperate, liars, and dissemblers; they laugh and weep easily, are excessive in their joys and sorrows, and that about the most trifling objects; they bear no pain, but like to inflict it on others; already they are men.

(51.) Children are neither for the past nor the future, but enjoy the present, which we rarely do.

(52.) There seems to be but one character in childhood; at that age morals and manners are nearly all the same, and it is only by paying great attention that we can perceive any difference, which, however, increases in the same proportion as reason does, whilst the passions and vices gather strength as well; these alone make men so unlike each other and so at variance with themselves.

(53.) Children already possess those faculties which are extinct in old men, namely, imagination and memory, and which are very useful to them in their little sports and amusements; by the help of these they repeat what they have heard, imitate what they see done, exercise all trades, either in busying themselves with many small labours or in copying the movements and gestures of various workmen; are guests at a sumptuous feast and entertained most luxuriously; are transported to enchanted palaces and places; have splendid carriages and a large retinue, though they are by themselves; are at the head of armies, give battle, and enjoy the delights of obtaining a victory; converse with kings and with the greatest princes; are themselves monarchs, have subjects, possess treasures which they make of leaves or sand; and know then, what they will ignore in afterlife, to be satisfied with their fortune and to be masters of their own happiness.

(54.) There are no outward vices, nor bodily defects, which children do not perceive; they observe them at once, and know how to describe them in suitable terms, for more exact definitions could not be invented; but when they become men, they, in their turn, contract the same imperfections which they ridiculed.

The only anxiety children have is to find out the weaknesses of their masters, and of the persons they have to obey; as soon as they have taken once advantage of these, they get the upper hand, and obtain an influence over these people which they never part with: for what once deprived these persons of their superiority will always prevent them recovering it.

(55.) Idleness, indolence, and laziness, vices so natural to children, disappear as soon as they begin to play; they are then lively, attentive, exact observers of rule and order, never pardon the least slip, and several times begin again one and the same thing, in which they failed; these are sure forebodings that they may, hereafter, neglect their duties, but will forget nothing that can promote their pleasures.

(56.) To children everything seems great; courtyards, gardens, houses, furniture, men, and animals; to men the things of the world appear so, and, I dare say, for the same reason, because they are little.

(57.) Children begin among themselves with a democracy, where every one is master; and what is very natural, it does not suit them for any length of time, and then they adopt a monarchy. One of them distinguishes himself from among the rest, either by greater vivacity, strength, and comeliness, or by a more exact knowledge of their various sports and of the little laws which regulate them; all the others submit to him, and then an absolute government is established, but only in matters of pleasure.

(58.) Who can doubt but that children conceive, judge, and reason consistently? If only in small things consider they are children, and without much experience; if they make use of an indifferent phraseology it is less their fault than their parentsʼ and mastersʼ.

(59.) It destroys all confidence in the minds of children, and alienates them as well, to punish them for faults they have not committed, or even to be severe with them for trifling offences; they know exactly, and better than any one, what they deserve, and seldom deserve more than they dread; when they are chastised, they know if it is justly or unjustly, whilst unjust punishments do them more harm than not to be punished at all.

(60.) Man does not live long enough to be benefited by his faults; he is committing them during the whole course of his life, and it is as much as he can do, if, after many errors, he dies at last improved.

Nothing revives more a man than the knowledge that he has avoided doing some foolish action.

(61.) Men are loath to particularise their faults; they conceal them or blame some other person for them, and this gives the “spiritual director”[554] an advantage over the father-confessor.

(62.) The faults of blockheads are sometimes so great and so difficult to foresee, that wise men are puzzled by them; they are only of use to those who commit them.

(63.) A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.

(64.) Vanity and propriety lead us to act in the same way and in the same manner as we should do through inclination or a feeling of duty; a man died lately in Paris of a fever which he got by sitting up at night with his wife, for whom he did not care.[555]

(65.) All men in their hearts covet esteem, but are loath any one should discover their anxiety to be esteemed; for men wish to be considered virtuous; and men would no longer be thought virtuous, but fond of esteem and praises, and vain, were they to derive any other advantages from virtue than virtue itself. Men are very vain, and of all things hate to be thought so.

(66.) A vain man finds it to his advantage to speak well or ill of himself; a modest man never talks of himself.

We cannot better understand how ridiculous vanity is, and what a disgraceful vice it is, than by observing how careful it is not to be seen, and how often it hides itself underneath a semblance of modesty.

False modesty is the highest affectation of vanity; it never shows a vain man in his true colours, but, on the contrary, enhances his reputation, through the very virtue which is the opposite of the vice constituting his real character; it is a falsehood. False glory is the rock on which vanity splits; it induces a desire in men to be esteemed for things they indeed possess, but which are frivolous and unworthy of being noticed; it is an error.

(67.) Men speak of themselves in such a manner, that though they admit they are guilty of some trifling faults, these very faults imply noble talents or great qualities. Thus they complain of a bad memory, though quite satisfied with the large amount of common sense and sound judgment they possess; submit to being reproached for absence of mind and musing, imagining them the concomitants of intelligence; acknowledge being awkward and not able to do anything with their hands, and comfort themselves for being without these small qualities by the knowledge of possessing those of the understanding or those innate feelings which every one allows them. In owning their indolence they always intimate they are disinterested and entirely cured of ambition; they are not ashamed of being slovenly, which shows they merely are careless of little things, and seems to imply that they solely occupy themselves with solid and important matters. A military man affects to say that it was rashness or curiosity which carried him into the trenches on a certain day, or in a dangerous spot, without being on duty or ordered to do so; and he adds that the general reprimanded him for it. Thus a man possessing brains or a solid genius and an innate circumspection which other men endeavour in vain to acquire; a man who has strengthened his mind by a long experience; to whom the number, weight, variety, difficulty, and importance of affairs merely procure some occupation without embarrassing him; who, by his extensive knowledge and penetration masters all events; who does not consult all the remarks ever written on the art of governments and politics, but is, perhaps, one of those sublime minds created to sway others, and from whose example those rules were first made; who is diverted, by the great things he does, from those pleasant and agreeable things he might read, and who, on the contrary, loses nothing by recapitulating and turning over, as it were, his own life and actions: a man, so constituted, may easily, and without compromising himself, admit that he knows nothing of books and never reads.[556]

(68.) Men intend sometimes to conceal their imperfections, or attenuate the opinion of others about them, by frankly acknowledging them. “I am very ignorant,” says some man who knows nothing; “I am getting old,” says a second above threescore; “I am far from rich,” says a third who is wretchedly poor.

(69.) There is either no such thing as modesty, or it is mistaken for something quite different, if we think it to be an inward sentiment, debasing man in his own eyes, and which is a supernatural virtue we call humility. Man naturally thinks of himself with pride and conceit, and thinks thus of no one but himself; modesty only aims at modifying this disposition so that no one shall suffer by it; it is an external virtue, which commands our looks, gait, words, tone of voice, and obliges a man ostensibly to act with others as if in reality he did not despise them.

(70.) There are many people in this world who inwardly and habitually draw a comparison between themselves and others, always give a decision in favour of their own merits, and behave accordingly.

(71.) You say, “Men must be modest;” that is what all intelligent men desire; but then people tyrannise over those who yield through modesty, and should not crush them when they give way.

Again some say, “People should be quiet in their dress;” intelligent men do not wish for anything else; but the world requires ornaments, and we comply with its demands; it runs eagerly after superfluities, and we display them. Some people value others only for the fine linen or the rich silks they wear, and we do not always refuse to purchase esteem, even on those terms. There are some places where every person shows himself, and where you will be admitted or refused admittance according as your gold lace is broader or narrower.

(72.) Vanity, and the high value we set upon ourselves, makes us imagine that others treat us very haughtily, which is sometimes true and often false; a modest man is not so susceptible.

(73.) We ought not to be so vain and imagine that others are anxious to have a look at us, and to esteem us, and that our talents and merits are the topics of their conversations, but we should have so much confidence in ourselves as not to fancy when people whisper that they speak ill of us, or laugh only to make fun of us.