Quotes

1. It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well, nor the judgment to hold their tongues. (Jean de La Bruyère. Me: One could easily exchange the word ‘when’ with the word ‘that’. But it’s still sad.)

2. Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates. (Jean de La Bruyère)

3. As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before. (-ll-)

4. Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable. (-ll-)

5. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet. (Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield)

6. The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; “they will both fall into the ditch.” (-ll-. This is part of what I love about getting feedback here on the blog; for some reason, people who’re somewhat older than me and have a lot more life experience (you know who you are) actually don’t mind reading along and they’re (you’re) nice enough to share their (your) experiences with me. I hate the idea of repeating other people’s mistakes, and even though there probably aren’t any easy ways to get years of experience without actually, you know, spending years getting it, the help that more mature individuals sometimes offer me is greatly appreciated, even though I always have had a hard time accepting help from others one way or the other. Did that sentence even make sense?)

7. Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one. (-ll-)

8. It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therfore one seldom does it at all. (-ll-)

9. If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. (Francis Bacon)

10. The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. (-ll-)

11. It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt. (-ll-)

12. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. (-ll-)

13. One of the strongest human impulses, after survival and reproduction, is the need to communicate irrelevant information. (Scott Adams)

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If the quotes section above contains quite a few aphorisms, it’s not a coincidence. One of my Christmas presents was ‘Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims’, by Rochefoucauld. I’ve read quite a bit of it already of course, but I’m not gonna stop there – he wasn’t the only smart guy in town.

Pride and Prejudice

I felt like I ought to write a post about the book, I’ve neglected book posts for a while, mostly because I haven’t read all that much but also because I just didn’t feel like it. I got Dilbert 2.0 for Christmas and I’ve read nothing else since December 24th. I completed it last night, but I probably won’t post anything related to that book here. It’s great, if you like Scott Adams’ cartoon it’s a book you ought to own.

Quotes from Austen below. Quote 5 and forward contain spoilers to some degree, if you feel like reading the book soon or you have an eidetic memory I’d advise you to not read past that point, even though none of the quotes answer the two questions you are most likely to be asking yourself while reading the last 50-100 pages:

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1. ‘Pride,’ observed Mary, [...] ‘is a very common failing I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.’ (p.14)

2. ‘I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were married to him tomorrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness, as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.’ (p.16)

3.’Nothing is more deceitful’, said Darcy, ‘than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.’ (p.33)

4.’Oh! Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her.’ (p.77. ‘If neither want to marry the other then what’s the problem?’ you might ask. This is England in the beginning of the 19th century. That’s the problem.)

5. ‘I tell you what, Miss Lizzy, if you take it into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, you will never get a husband at all – and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead. – I shall not be able to keep you – and so I warn you. – I have done with you from this very day. – I told you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children.’ (p.79. Imagine a parent making the same speech today.)

6. [3 days after Mr Collins' marriage proposal to Lizzy, he proposed to Charlotte Lucas:] ‘Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent; and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr Collins’s present circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom they could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate with more interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer Mr Bennet was likely to live… The whole family in short were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes of coming out [US: get married] a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte’s dying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr Collins to be sure was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. – Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at the age of twenty-seven [judging from the book, at that point in time most women were married long before they reached that age - take this quote for instance: 'Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three and twenty!' Lydia, p.149], without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it.’ (p. 85. The woman who’s about to marry the guy think of him that way, the woman who rejected him is more blunt: ‘Mr Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man’ (p.93). I agree with the latter description of the guy, based on what’s in the book, though I’d add a few modern terms such as ‘dirtbag’ and ‘asshole’ after having read the guy’s letter to Mr Bennet regarding the Lydia affair, later in the book.)

7. ‘Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic confort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.’ (p.159)

8. ‘But can you think that Lydia is so lost to everything but love of him, as to consent to live with him on any other terms than marriage?’
‘It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed,’ replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, ‘that a sister’s sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But really, I know not what to say.’ (p.189. Oh yes, living with a man without being married? The horror! But things were different back then. Very different…)

9. ‘The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. [...] While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of [the people planning the union] would be accomplished, in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement [...]? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say, that from his earliest hours he was destined for [the other woman]?’ (p.238)