Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims Part 3

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 grat.i.tude."--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 b.u.t.t 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.