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It is sometimes useful to pretend we are deceived, because when we show a deceiving man that we see through his artifices, we only encourage him to increase his deceptions.

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

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Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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The loftiness of understanding embraces all. It requires as much spirit to suffer the failings of others as it does to appreciate their good qualities.
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We need not regard what good a friend has done us, but only his desire to do us good.
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Good results are sometimes owing to a failure of judgment, because the faculty of judgment often hinders us from undertaking many things which would succeed if carried through without thinking.
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We often value the exterior and superficial aspect of things more than their inner reality. Bad manners taint everything even justice and reason. The 'how' of things matters most, and even the most disagreeable matters can be sweetened and gilded over with the proper appearance. Such is the bias and the weakness of the human mind.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.
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There is little advantage in pleasing ourselves when we please no one else, for our great self-love is often chastised by the scorn of others.
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We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.
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Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.
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We would often rather seem dutiful to others than to succeed in our duties and often we would rather tell our friends that we have done them good than to do good in actuality.
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Ignorance makes for weakness and fear knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination.
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Self-love is almost always the ruling principle of our friendships. It makes us avoid all our obligations in unprofitable situations, and even causes us to forget our hostility towards our enemies when they become powerful enough to help us achieve fame or fortune.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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In knowledge of human affairs, we should never allow our minds to be enslaved by others by subjecting ourselves to their whims. We must maintain freedom of thought, and never accept anything of purely human authority into our heads. When we are presented with a diversity of opinions, we must choose, if we can if we cannot, we must remain in doubt.
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Wealth does not teach us to transcend the desire for wealth. The possession of many goods does not bring the repose of not desiring them.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.
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We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half.
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Often the desire to appear competent impedes our ability to become competent, because we more anxious to display our knowledge than to learn what we do not know.
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Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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It is better that great peoples should seek out glory, or even vanity, in their deeds, than that they should remain indifferent . For even if they are not incited to act upon virtuous principles, at least there is the saving grace that they will do things they might not have done had not vanity prompted their actions.
Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
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Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.
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Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.
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