Desultory thoughts and reflections — Text and Context

losophy was a boon bestowed by Reason to console mankind for the inevitable misfortunes of life, but being found insufficient for the task, she granted the blessing of Religion, a younger, a more gentle, and infallible consoler.

A substitute for goodness of heart.

A starving man, who committed theft, was asked by a pious person if his conscience had not cried out to him to forbear. “Alas!” replied he, “if it did, the cries of my stomach were so much louder, that they prevented me from hearing those of conscience.”

Presentiments are the heart’s prophecies; for the heart is a sibyl deeply skilled in all the mysteries of her own realm.

Youth resembles a Claude Lorraine glass, which imparts to all objects its own beautiful tints; but age is like a magnifying lens, which leaves no defect unseen.

Confidences are more frequently reposed in persons through a want of discretion, than from excess of friendship, and are oftener betrayed through incontinency of speech than from motives of treachery.

The common herd of mankind mistake anarchy for liberty, ostentation for generosity, passion for love, and vanity for pride; yet how widely different are they all!

JUDGMENT OF WOMEN ON MEN.

Women are prone to judge their lovers’ hearts But by their own, which little semblance hath With man’s rough nature. Hence they love them for The qualities they give them—not for those They have, which rarely merit to be loved.

Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrame.

Gratitude was fancifully said to be the memory of the heart; but, alas! for poor human nature, hearts are more than suspected to have wondrous short memories.

A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is generally influenced by his head.

Life would be as insupportable without the prospect of death, as it would be without sleep.

It is in maturity, when the passions are calmed, and Reason exerts her influence, that the attachments we form possess the most stability. We expect less, and pardon more. The disappointments we have experienced teach us to value what we have attained, even while regretting what we have lost.

The poetry of our lives is, like our religion, kept apart from our every-day thoughts; neither influence us as they ought. We should be wiser and happier, if, instead of secluding them in some secret shrine in our hearts, we suffered their humanising qualities to temper our habitual words and actions.

Honour is the peculiar and essential virtue of men, and chastity that of women; both are lost, if these qualities are impeached.

Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection; like the Spartans, who punished the discovery of theft, and not the crime.

A man with a vast number of ideas, without strong power of reasoning, resembles a general incapable of directing his troops.

The selfish man believes that by closing his heart against his fellows, and centering in self every thought and feeling, he escapes much suffering. But his egotistical calculations are invariably defeated; for his contracted sympathies being all directed to one focus, he so aggravates the ills he endures, that he expends on self alone more painful pity than the most enthusiastic philanthropist devotes to mankind.

Each illusion that dies gives birth to a posthumous one, which we believe to be less perishable than its predecessor, until we see it similarly fade and expire.

Happiness, like youth and health, is rarely appreciated until it is past.

In solitude we retain our own faults; but in society we superadd those of others.

Some people seem to consider the severity of their censures on the errors of others as an atonement for their own.

When youth has fled the furrowed brow, And we no more can trace it now Beaming in every outward part; Where is its refuge?—in the heart; Yes, there it dwells more glowing—warm, Than when it lent exterior charm, Keeping alive affection’s fire, Though it no more can love inspire.

Happiness consists, not in having much, but in being content with little.

We injure ourselves more than our enemies, by indulging hatred towards them.

From out the grave of every friend we loved Springs up a flower (as fabulists relate Arose from the red stream of Ajax’ wound,) Memory ’tis named, and watered by our tears, It lives and grows, until its fibres strike Into the heart, nor leave it until death.

We never respect those who amuse us, however we may smile at their comic powers. A considerable distinction exists between the amusing and the entertaining man: we laugh with one, but reflect with the other.