Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims Part 16

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 friends.h.i.+p is not to show our faults to a friend, but to show him his own.

4ll.--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.--Aime 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 debas.e.m.e.nt, 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 pa.s.sions 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 Bruyere, Des Judgements.]

427.--Most friends sicken us of friends.h.i.+p, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 friends.h.i.+p, yet for their misfortunes we always owe them pity.