Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims Part 8

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 antic.i.p.ation.

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 pa.s.sions 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 Conde and Marshal Turenne much less if we did not want to blame them both.

[The allusion to Conde and Turenne gives the date at which these maxims were published in 1665. Conde 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.