Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.
There is as much wisdom in soliciting good counsel as in giving it. The most sensible people are not reluctant to consider the feelings of other people; and to know how to submit to the wise guidance of others is a kind of wisdom in itself.
There is a certain hidden mediocrity in those who are stationed above us in life, an ability to take liberties in their pursuit of pleasures and diversions, without injuring the honor and respect we owe to them.
We are more put off by people who parade their dignity than by people who show off their wardrobes. When people have to trick themselves out to gain attention, it is a sure sign that they are unworthy of it. If we want to make ourselves worthy, we can do so only by the innate eminence conferred by virtue. We hold great people in esteem more for the qualities of their soul than for the qualities of their fortune.
It is better that great peoples should seek out glory, or even vanity, in their deeds, than that they should remain indifferent . For even if they are not incited to act upon virtuous principles, at least there is the saving grace that they will do things they might not have done had not vanity prompted their actions.
Self-love is almost always the ruling principle of our friendships. It makes us avoid all our obligations in unprofitable situations, and even causes us to forget our hostility towards our enemies when they become powerful enough to help us achieve fame or fortune.
Self-love is even deceived by self-love, because by looking out for our own interests and disregarding those of other people, we lose the advantage that comes with the exchange of favors.
Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.
It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.
The foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.
The conversation of those who like to lord it over us is very disagreeable. But we should always be ready to graciously acknowledge the truth, no matter in what guise it comes to us.
We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.
Love is always master everywhere. It shapes the soul, the heart, and the mind wherever it exists. What matters is not the amount of love, but simply its existence in the mind and heart where it resides. And it truly appears that love is to the soul of the lover as the soul itself is to the body which it animates.
It is a strength of character to acknowledge our failings and our strong points, and it is a weakness of character not to remain in harmony with both the good and the bad that is within us.
There is little advantage in pleasing ourselves when we please no one else, for our great self-love is often chastised by the scorn of others.
Everyone is so caught up in his own passions and interests that he always wants to talk about them without getting involved in the passions and interests of those to whom he speaks, although his listeners have the same need for others to listen to and help them.
There is a certain manner of self-absorption in speaking that always renders the speaker disagreeable. For it is as great a folly to listen only to ourselves while we are carrying on a conversation with others as it is to talk to ourselves while we are alone.
Self-love makes us deceive ourselves in almost all matters, to censure others, and to blame them for the same faults that we do not correct in ourselves; we do this either because we are unaware of the evil that exists within us, or because we always see our own evil disguised as a good.
There is always enough self-love hidden beneath the greatest devoutness to set limits on charity.
All the great amusements are dangerous for the Christian life.
We often value the exterior and superficial aspect of things more than their inner reality. Bad manners taint everything even justice and reason. The 'how' of things matters most, and even the most disagreeable matters can be sweetened and gilded over with the proper appearance. Such is the bias and the weakness of the human mind.
There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.
Good results are sometimes owing to a failure of judgment, because the faculty of judgment often hinders us from undertaking many things which would succeed if carried through without thinking.
Criticism should awaken our attention, not inflame our anger. We should listen to, and not flee from, those who contradict us. Truth should be our cause, no matter in what manner it comes to us.
Ignorance makes for weakness and fear; knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination.
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