Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims — John Shaqi
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral MaximsLa Rochefoucauld, François duc de
Philosophy
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
La Rochefoucauld, François duc de
Maxims
69.--If there is a pure love, exempt from the mixture of our other
passions, it is that which is concealed at the bottom of the heart and
of which even ourselves are ignorant.
70.--There is no disguise which can long hide love where it exists, nor
feign it where it does not.
71.--There are few people who would not be ashamed of being beloved when
they love no longer.
72.--If we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather
resembles hatred than friendship.
73.--We may find women who have never indulged in an intrigue, but it is
rare to find those who have intrigued but once.
["Yet there are some, they say, who have had None}; But those who
have, ne'er end with only one}." {--Lord Byron, }Don Juan, {Canto} iii.,
stanza 4.]
74.--There is only one sort of love, but there are a thousand different
copies.
75.--Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both
cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.
[So Lord Byron{Stanzas, (1819), stanza 3} says of Love-- "Like chiefs of
faction, His life is action."]
76.--There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person
speaks of it, few persons have seen it.
["Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art-- An unseen seraph, we believe
in thee-- A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,-- But never yet
hath seen, nor e'er shall see The naked eye, thy form as it should be."
{--Lord Byron, }Childe Harold, {Canto} iv., stanza 121.]
77.--Love lends its name to an infinite number of engagements
(Commerces) which are attributed to it, but with which it has no more
concern than the Doge has with all that is done in Venice.
78.--The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of
suffering injustice.
79.--Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.
80.--What renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is
difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of
the mind.
81.--We can love nothing but what agrees with us, and we can only follow
our taste or our pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves;
nevertheless it is only by that preference that friendship can be true
and perfect.
82.--Reconciliation with our enemies is but a desire to better our
condition, a weariness of war, the fear of some unlucky accident.
["Thus terminated that famous war of the Fronde. The Duke de la
Rochefoucauld desired peace because of his dangerous wounds and ruined
castles, which had made him dread even worse events. On the other side
the Queen, who had shown herself so ungrateful to her too ambitious
friends, did not cease to feel the bitterness of their resentment. 'I
wish,' said she, 'it were always night, because daylight shows me so
many who have betrayed me.'"--Memoires De Madame De Motteville, Tom.
IV., p. 60. Another proof that although these maxims are in some cases
of universal application, they were based entirely on the experience of
the age in which the author lived.]
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