Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims — François de La Rochefoucauld

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

François de La Rochefoucauld · Licencia: Public domain · Fuente

• 415.--Wit sometimes enables us to act rudely with impunity. ¶593
• 416.--The vivacity which increases in old age is not far removed from folly. ¶594
• "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.] ¶596
• 417.--In love the quickest is always the best cure. ¶597
• 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. ¶598
• 419.--We may seem great in a post beneath our capacity, but we oftener seem little in a post above it. ¶599
• 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. ¶600
• 421.--Conceit causes more conversation than wit. ¶601
• 422.--All passions make us commit some faults, love alone makes us ridiculous. ¶602
• 424.--We often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy. ¶605
• 425.--Penetration has a spice of divination in it which tickles our vanity more than any other quality of the mind. ¶606
• 426.--The charm of novelty and old custom, however opposite to each other, equally blind us to the faults of our friends. ¶607
• 427.--Most friends sicken us of friendship, most devotees of devotion. ¶609
• 428.--We easily forgive in our friends those faults we do not perceive. ¶610
• 429.--Women who love, pardon more readily great indiscretions than little infidelities. ¶611
• 430.--In the old age of love as in life we still survive for the evils, though no longer for the pleasures. ¶612
• 431.--Nothing prevents our being unaffected so much as our desire to seem so. ¶614
• 432.--To praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in them. ¶615
• 433.--The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy. ¶616
• 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. ¶618
• 435.--Luck and temper rule the world. ¶619
• 436.--It is far easier to know men than to know man. ¶620
• 437.--We should not judge of a man's merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them. ¶621
• 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. ¶622
• 439.--We should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired. ¶624
• 440.--The cause why the majority of women are so little given to friendship is, that it is insipid after having felt love. ¶625
• 441.--As in friendship so in love, we are often happier from ignorance than from knowledge. ¶627
• 442.--We try to make a virtue of vices we are loth to correct. ¶628
• 443.--The most violent passions give some respite, but vanity always disturbs us. ¶629
• 444.--Old fools are more foolish than young fools. ¶630
• 445.--Weakness is more hostile to virtue than vice. ¶632
• 446.--What makes the grief of shame and jealousy so acute is that vanity cannot aid us in enduring them. ¶633
• 447.--Propriety is the least of all laws, but the most obeyed. ¶634
• 448.--A well-trained mind has less difficulty in submitting to than in guiding an ill-trained mind. ¶636
• 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. ¶637
• 450.--Our pride is often increased by what we retrench from our other faults. ¶638
• 451.--No fools so wearisome as those who have some wit. ¶640
• 452.--No one believes that in every respect he is behind the man he considers the ablest in the world. ¶641
• 453.--In great matters we should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilise those that offer themselves. ¶642
• 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. ¶644

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