Page:Aphorisms — an address delivered before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, November 11, 1887.djvu/52

 many of these short sentences were more than thirty times revised. They were given to the world in the last half of the seventeenth century in a little volume which Frenchmen used to know by heart, which gave a new turn to the literary taste of the nation, and which has been translated into every civilised tongue. It paints men as they would be if selflove were the one great mainspring of human action, and it makes magnanimity itself no better than self-interest in disguise.

"Interest," he says, "speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts, even the part of the disinterested."

"Gratitude is with most people only a strong desire for greater benefits to come."

"Love of justice is with most of us nothing but the fear of suffering injustice."

"Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, a mutual exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always intends to make something."

"We have all strength enough to endure the troubles of other people."

"Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done, as fear of the ill that may come to us in consequence."