Maxims and Reflections Part 5

89

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

90

What a long time people were vainly disputing about the Antipodes!

91

Certain minds must be allowed their peculiarities.

92

Snow is false purity.

93

Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.

94

Those from whom we are always learning are rightly called our masters; but not every one who teaches us deserves this t.i.tle.

95

It is with you as with the sea: the most varied names are given to what is in the end only salt water.

96

It is said that vain self-praise stinks in the nostrils. That may be so; but for the kind of smell which comes from unjust blame by others the public has no nose at all.

97

There are problematical natures which are equal to no position in which they find themselves, and which no position satisfies. This it is that causes that hideous conflict which wastes life and deprives it of all pleasure.

98

If we do any real good, it is mostly _clam, vi, et precario_.

99

Dirt glitters as long as the sun s.h.i.+nes.

100

It is difficult to be just to the pa.s.sing moment. We are bored by it if it is neither good nor bad; but the good moment lays a task upon us, and the bad moment a burden.

101

He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection with the beginning.

102

So obstinately contradictory is man that you cannot compel him to his advantage, yet he yields before everything that forces him to his hurt.

103

Forethought is simple, afterthought manifold.

104

A state of things in which every day brings some new trouble is not the right one.

105

When people suffer by failing to look before them, nothing is commoner than trying to look out for some possible remedy.

106

The Hindoos of the Desert make a solemn vow to eat no fish.

107

To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.

108

It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.

109

Truth belongs to the man, error to his age. This is why it has been said that, while the misfortune of the age caused his error, the force of his soul made him emerge from the error with glory.

110

Every one has his peculiarities and cannot get rid of them; and yet many a one is destroyed by his peculiarities, and those too of the most innocent kind.

111

If a man does think too much of himself, he is more than he believes himself to be.

112

In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its nature.

113

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.