REFLECTIONS;
OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
0.
[This epigraph which is the key to the system of La
Rochefoucauld, is found in another form as No. 179 of the maxims
of the first edition, 1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd,
and reappears for the first time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as
at present, at the head of the Reflections.—Aimé
Martin. Its best answer is arrived at by reversing the predicate
and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory maxim
equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues
disguised.]
1. Virtuous acts are often done for
vile reasons, and vile acts for virtuous reasons. The worst deeds are
often done for the best of reasons and nearly always excused by a
pretense of the noblest intentions.
["Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a
death-bed like the meanest slave; Who reasons wisely is not
therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies."
Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. i. line 115.]
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2. People explain all human acts in
terms pleasing to themselves.
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3.
[This is the first hint of the system the author tries to
develop. He wishes to find in vice a motive for all our actions,
but this does not suffice him; he is obliged to call other
passions to the help of his system and to confound pride, vanity,
interest and egotism with self love. This confusion destroys the
unity of his principle.—Aimé Martin.]
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5. We cannot will feelings, but we
can will beliefs that enhance or decrease the feelings.
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6. Noone can be rational when
passionate (though one may be reasonable).
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7. Events can be predicted and
produced by plans, but extraordinary events require extraordinary
circumstances.
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8. [See
Maxim 249 which is an illustration of this.]
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9. Every passion excludes others,
and noone impassioned can impartially survey all possible evidence
about the subject of his passions.
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10. People live adrift an ocean of
moods, tossed about by waves of feelings. Noone can control his
emotions, but all may control their expressions and the beliefs that
embed them.
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11. People identify with what they
have strong positive feelings about and have strong positive feelings
about what they identify with. People feel attacked when they feel
their interests criticized.
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12.
[The 1st edition, 1665, preserves the image perhaps
better—"however we may conceal our passions under the veil,
etc., there is always some place where they peep out."]
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14. It is easier to be ungrateful
than grateful, and apart from passion the great motivators are ease
and comfort.
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15.
["So many are the advantages which monarchs gain by clemency,
so greatly does it raise their fame and endear them to their
subjects, that it is generally happy for them to have an
opportunity of displaying it."—Montesquieu, Esprit Des
Lois, Lib. VI., C. 21.]
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16. Moral qualities in most men are
mostly conformism. There are far more loyal people than there are
principled people. For most men, being a social animal is being a
conforming animal. Few people have sufficient courage to stand on
their own feet and make independent personal judgements unbiased by
the fear of what their acquaitances may think of them.
[La Rochefoucauld is content to paint the age in which he
lived. Here the clemency spoken of is nothing more than an
expression of the policy of Anne of Austria. Rochefoucauld had
sacrificed all to her; even the favour of Cardinal Richelieu, but
when she became regent she bestowed her favours upon those she
hated; her friends were forgotten.—Aimé Martin.]
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19. People only can feel their own
feelings and are forever locked up within the limits of their own
incapacities. All fellow-feeling depends on the imagination or
instinct.
[The strongest example of this is the passage in Lucretius,
lib. ii., line I:— "Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora
ventis E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem."]
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20.
[Thus wisdom is only hypocrisy, says a commentator. This
definition of constancy is a result of maxim 18.]
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21.
[See this thought elaborated in
maxim 504.]
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22. Circumstances are stronger than
men.
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24. Heroism is partial: One party's
heroes are another party's monsters or fools. If there is anything
commonly admired in heroes it are courage and loyalty.
[Both these maxims have been rewritten and made conciser by
the author; the variations are not worth quoting.]
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25. Better opportunities are also
better opportunities for abuse: what can be used can be abused.
["Prosperity do{th} best discover vice, but adversity do{th}
best discover virtue."—Lord Bacon, Essays{, (1625), "Of
Adversity"}.]
{The quotation wrongly had "does" for "doth".}
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29. Noone is valued for what he is;
all are valued for what they seem to be.
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30. It is far easier to desire than
to do, and far easier to believe than to prove. In general, people
believe what they desire to believe and desire what serves their
self-interest. Few desire knowledge, but all desire pleasure, though
it is true that what pleases depends to a much larger extent on
beliefs than people believe.
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33.
[See maxim 450, where the author states, what we take from our
other faults we add to our pride.]
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34. The humble take great pride in
their humility. There is no virtue that cannot be simulated, and most
moral behaviour in society is motivated by self-interest, hypocrisy,
conformism or fear rather than by moral principles. Moral stances are
far more often hypocritical than honest, and for every hundred people
that desire something done at most one will attempt to do it, if it
takes trouble or brings personal danger or discomfort.
["The proud are ever most provoked by pride."—Cowper,
Conversation 160.]
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35.
["Pride bestowed on all a common friend."—Pope, Essay On
Man, Ep. ii., line 273.]
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38. Promises are made and kept
proportional to expected benefits.
["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
gratitude."—Fragments Historiques. Racine.]
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47. Everything a man is and may be
depends on temperament: We all are creatures of our moods. The most
important ability insofar as one's well-being is concerned is the
ability to make and control one's moods.
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48. It is we ourselves who design
our appreciation of the world, even if this is not done deliberately.
The facts are given to us, but we infuse the values and impose the
explanation.
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49. All judgements involving oneself
are exaggerated and partial.
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50.
["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.}
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51. All are fickle; all are frail;
all are fallible, and constancy is death.
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53. Every success is in part due to
design and in equal or greater part to luck.
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54.
["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.]
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56. In matters social, appearance is
far more important than reality.
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57. The reasons people give for
deeds are rarely the reasons the deeds have, and usually the reasons
people desire the deeds to have.
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59. Everything can be plausibly
explained and excused.
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61. Human happines depends mostly on
mood.
["Still to ourselves in every place consigned Our own felicity
we make or find." Goldsmith, Traveller, 431.]
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64. Society is based on lies,
pretenses and hypocrisy, and could not exist without it.
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65.
[The author corrected this maxim several times, in 1665 it is
No. 75; 1666, No. 66; 1671-5, No. 65; in the last edition it
stands as at present. In the first he quotes Juvenal, Sat. X.,
line 315. " Nullum numen habes si sit Prudentia, nos te; Nos
facimus, Fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus." Applying to Prudence
what Juvenal does to Fortune, and with much greater force.]
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66. Greed galls everything it lusts
after and seeks to possess where it is wiser to enjoy.
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68. Love is the desire to help
others.
["Love is the love of one {singularly,} with desire to be
singularly beloved."—Hobbes{Leviathan, (1651), Part I,
Chapter VI}.]
{Two notes about this quotation: (1) the translators'
mistakenly have "singularity" for the first "singularly" and (2)
Hobbes does not actually write "Love is the..."—he writes
"Love of one..." under the heading "The passion of Love."}
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69. Pure love is far more common
between parents and children than between parents.
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73.
["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.]
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75.
[So Lord Byron{Stanzas, (1819), stanza 3} says of
Love— "Like chiefs of faction, His life is action."]
*
76.
["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.]
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78. Most men love justice to the
extent they profit from it.
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81. Whatever we think or feel is to
a considerable extent our own creation and relative to our own
position.
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82. Peace exists between two parties
after one is defeated.
["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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83. Friendship, if genuine, is
companionship based on some mutual interest and some mutual capacity
and willingness to please.
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87. Social life is for the most part
mutual deceit to protect each other's feelings and further each self's
interests.
[A maxim, adds Aimé Martin, "Which may enter into the
code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a
moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it:
"Deceiving and being deceived."—2 TIM. iii. 13.]
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89. Everybody complains about the
judgements of others, but very few try to remedy the shortcomings in
their own judgements.
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90. We are rarely valued for what we
are worth.
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92.
[That is, they cured him. The madman was Thrasyllus, son of
Pythodorus. His brother Crito cured him, when he infinitely
regretted the time of his more pleasant madness.—See
Aelian, Var. Hist. iv. 25. So Horace—
——————"Pol, me occidistis,
amici, Non servastis," ait, "cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus
per vim mentis gratissimus error." HOR. EP. ii—2, 138, of
the madman who was cured of a pleasant lunacy.]
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97. To be able to see things as they
are is almost as rare a capacity as to be able to explain why things
are as they are. Few are willing to see the facts; fewer are able to
see the facts; and fewer still are able to explain the facts.
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98. Few deny they are good men,
though all know they are poor reasoners. Nothing blinds as well as
self-interest.
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102. It is very difficult to reason
against one's feelings and inclinations.
[A feeble imitation of that great thought "All folly comes
from the heart."—Aimé Martin. But Bonhome, in his
L'art De Penser, says "Plusieurs diraient en période
quarré que quelques reflexions que fasse l'esprit et
quelques resolutions qu'il prenne pour corriger ses travers le
premier sentiment du coeur renverse tous ses projets. Mais il
n'appartient qu'a M. de la Rochefoucauld de dire tout en un mot
que l'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur."]
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103. It is much easier to understand
an argument than the things argued about.
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104. Adequate perspective is
required for adequate judgement.
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105. A rational man is one who
argues conclusions logically from assumptions and tests his
assumptions by comparing his conclusions with experience. However,
this will not be of any avail, unless one as a faculty for finding
adequate assumptions.
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106. All knowledge is knowledge of
outlines only. If there were not so much capable of true summary
judgement, men would not have survived. The simplicity of the universe
corresponds to the finiteness of our understanding.
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110. It is far easier to give advice
than to give help. Generally, the givers of advice are more helped by
their giving advice than the receivers are by the advice.
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115. People deceive themselves as
easily as they deceive others. Besides, all know only the surface of
others, and few men have adequate knowledge of the character and lives
of those they depend on.
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116.
["I have often thought how ill-natured a maxim it was which on
many occasions I have heard from people of good understanding,
‘That as to what related to private conduct no one was ever
the better for advice.' But upon further examination I have
resolved with myself that the maxim might be admitted without any
violent prejudice to mankind. For in the manner advice was
generally given there was no reason I thought to wonder it should
be so ill received, something there was which strangely inverted
the case, and made the giver to be the only gainer. For by what I
could observe in many occurrences of our lives, that which we
called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our
own wisdom at another's expense. On the other side to be
instructed or to receive advice on the terms usually prescribed
to us was little better than tamely to afford another the
occasion of raising himself a character from our
defects."—Lord Shaftesbury, Characteristics, i., 153.]
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119. People quickly come to believe
their own pretensions about themselves. It tends to be much easier to
believe that one is as one likes to be than to be it, whereas imagined
qualities often are as pleasant and effective as real ones. In social
life it rarely matters what is - appearance and hypocrisy not only
count for but in many cases are what they pretend to be: A creditable
travesty of the real thing.
["Those who quit their proper character{,} to assume what does
not belong to them, are{,} for the greater part{,} ignorant both
of the character they leave{,} and of the character they
assume."—Burke, {Reflections On The Revolution In France,
(1790), Paragraph 19}.]
{The translators' incorrectly cite Thoughts On The Cause Of
The Present Discontents.}
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120. It is easier to be weak than to
be good.
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121. Much good is done as necessary
precondition for remunerative evil.
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122. Noone can resist his passions -
all one may hope to do is to act or fail to act wisely upon them.
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125.
["With that low cunning which in fools supplies, And amply,
too, the place of being wise." Churchill, Rosciad, 117.]
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131.
[———"Faciunt graviora coactae Imperio sexus minimumque libidine peccant."
Juvenal, Sat.
vi., 134.]
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132.
[Hence the proverb, "A man who is his own lawyer has a fool
for his client."]
MM: A professional liar for money must do
it better?
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135. Character is real, but much of
character is enacted. Both roles and character depend on purpose: We
play at being such and such person to further our ends, and if we
pretend long enough we will become what we pretend, if we have the
capacity.
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136. Love tends to be a euphemism
for lust.
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138. People like to talk of
themselves most of all.
["Montaigne's vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself,
and as often happens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own
failings than of any foreign subject."— Hallam, Literature
Of Europe.]
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139. Few people care about subjects
that do not afford them to shine.
["An absent man can make but few observations, he can pursue
nothing steadily because his absences make him lose his way. They
are very disagreeable and hardly to be tolerated in old age, but
in youth they cannot be forgiven." —Lord Chesterfield,
Letter 195.]
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142.
["So much they talked, so very little said." Churchill,
Rosciad, 550.
"Men who are unequal to the labour of discussing an argument
or wish to avoid it, are willing enough to suppose that much has
been proved because much has been said."— Junius, Jan.
1769.]
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148.
["Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without
sneering, teach the rest to sneer." Pope {Essay On Man, (1733),
Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot.}]
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149.
[The modesty which pretends to refuse praise is but in truth a
desire to be praised more highly. Edition 1665.]
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151. The only persons fit to rule
others are those who do rule themselves.
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165. Public
appreciation is always of chimaeras: Mundus VULT decipi.
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166. If people may choose between
appearance and reality they normally choose appearance, because it
fits better with their beliefs and desires.
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171. To believe that at bottom all
people seek to do and avoid is due to self-interest confuses the
interest people may take in others with the fact that all can only
feel their own feelings. Besides, a considerable amount of apparent
self-interest is not so much self-interest as cowardice (and cowardice
is not the same as self-interest, because it is the motive that keeps
many would be thieves from indulging their self-interest).
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175. Where love is the veneer of
lust there is no constancy. Most succesful marriages are not based on
love for each other but on friendship, succesful cooperation and love
for the offspring.
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180. Noone feels for another what
one feels for oneself, for noone feels another's feelings. All
sympathy is based on the imagination (though some instinct is
involved).
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186. In general, appreciation of
people follows rank. Few can see the worth of a person apart from his
social status.
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196. We remember what we desire to
remember, and endeavour to forget the rest.
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200. There is no such thing as a
pure motive. All motives are mixed.
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201. Noone is irreplacable in
society.
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205. The common virtues are based on
conformism. Hence the least interesting people tend to be the most
virtuous.
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207. People do not grow mentally
after age 25, nor do they grow older mentally. There is little wisdom
based on understanding - most wisdom consists of prettified
disillusions and is based on bitter experience.
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213. Personal power, personal glory
and personal riches are the ends of social actions. The egoism that
moves all is beneficent to most because (and only if) the egoism of
each is checked and balanced by the egoism of others.
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216. People turn into different
people when they believe themselves to be watched by other people, and
the more so they believe they depend on these. The difference between
people and the roles people play is as between one skinned and one
unskinned.
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218. Hypocrisy is the foundation of
most moral actions. Most good is done for no better reason than to
avoid the sanctions imposed on not doing good. Few people
spontaneously help others, and those who do help only a few of those
in need of help.
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219. Wars are fought because the
combatants on each side rather murder unknown persons who have never
harmed them than incur the disapproval of their own fellows.
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220. Most personalities are mostly
pretense. Very few have the courage to say what they think and do as
they feel, and of those who do most are drunk or mad.
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230. All social behaviour is based
on role-playing; all role-playing is based on imitation; all imitation
consists in aping others in the hope to acquire what they acquire by
their behaviour.
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234. The social radicals tend to be
the ambitious with little chance on a career by normal means.
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237. The good all too often are the
bad without courage.
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240. Much that goes for human beauty
is symmetry of otherwise normal features combined with some childish
features.
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247. Loyalty is based on adulation
of authority; fear of others; and love of ease. The easiest and surest
way to preferment is to be a loyal fool.
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250. True eloquence speaks in
original similes and maxims.
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254. All humility is a stratagem to
avoid offense to the pride of others. The truly humble are without
self-interest; and those without self-interest are dead.
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255. Except in simple cases, the
expressed emotions and the felt emotions are as different as taste and
digestion.
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266. Passions mix like paints in
water. Except when in extreme emotion all motives are mixed.
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269. Noone can see all the
consequences nor all the causes of one's acts.
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323. Very few have good judgement in
all matters, for very few have good judgement. What special qualities
people have tend to be based on the development of some at the cost of
many others.
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334. Women like to be seen; men to
see.
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360. People do not care for people
in general. All love few; like some; and are indifferent to nearly
all.
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375. Most harm is done by common
people: It is the common people who willingly serve as cannonfodder
and butchers for the ambitions of their leaders.
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414. Nearly all judgements of nearly
all people are based on the emotions and not on ascertainable fact and
logic.
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513. Men believe what they wish to
believe, and are usually not aware of the reasons for their beliefs.
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533. Public opinions are nearly
always means to belong to the flock. What people normally say tends to
be cant.
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572. Our judgements about ourselves
are never impartial. Besides, whereas we can compare others to others,
it is difficult to compare ourselves to others because how we are to
ourselves appears very different to us from how others appear to us.
*