Reflections; or Sentences and Moral MaximsLa Rochefoucauld, François duc de
Philosophy
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
La Rochefoucauld, François duc de
Maxims
A woman may like science, but all sciences are not suitable for her, and
the doctrines of certain sciences never become her, and when applied by
her are always false.
We should allow reason and good sense to fix the value of things, they
should determine our taste and give things the merit they deserve, and
the importance it is fitting we should give them. But nearly all men are
deceived in the price and in the value, and in these mistakes there is
always a kind of falseness.
VII. On Air and Manner.
There is an air which belongs to the figure and talents of each
individual; we always lose it when we abandon it to assume another.
We should try to find out what air is natural to us and never abandon
it, but make it as perfect as we can. This is the reason that the
majority of children please. It is because they are wrapt up in the air
and manner nature has given them, and are ignorant of any other. They
are changed and corrupted when they quit infancy, they think they should
imitate what they see, and they are not altogether able to imitate it.
In this imitation there is always something of falsity and uncertainty.
They have nothing settled in their manner and opinions. Instead of being
in reality what they want to appear, they seek to appear what they are
not.
All men want to be different, and to be greater than they are; they seek
for an air other than their own, and a mind different from what
they possess; they take their style and manner at chance. They make
experiments upon themselves without considering that what suits one
person will not suit everyone, that there is no universal rule for taste
or manners, and that there are no good copies.
Few men, nevertheless, can have unison in many matters without being
a copy of each other, if each follow his natural turn of mind. But in
general a person will not wholly follow it. He loves to imitate. We
often imitate the same person without perceiving it, and we neglect our
own good qualities for the good qualities of others, which generally do
not suit us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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