Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/35

 It is no use trying to teach enthusiasts prudence. Such people promise to be careful, and think that they are so, yet are the most imprudent beings in the world.

There are people, and they are not uncommon, who when they sketch cannot bear to have creases in their sleeves, who for every joint that they draw keep a particular pencil, must have their own particular stools, must have their windows face a particular quarter, and, when they begin to draw, draw uncommonly ill. This kind of character obtains not only among artists but also among men in general. I must not be supposed, however, to draw attention to it as an example of the Parturiunt montes;nothing could be further from my mind, for what I mean is not ostentation but extravagance.

Do not take too artificial a view of mankind but judge them from a natural standpoint, deeming them neither over good nor over bad.

Human pride is a strange thing; it cannot easily be suppressed, and if you stop up hole A will peep forth again in a twinkling from another hole B, and if this is closed it is ready to come out at hole C, and so on.

I have been acquainted with few people in the world whose weaknesses would not have been disclosed by three weeks‘ intercourse (reckoning, that is to