er
been broken.

CXXV.--A man to whom no one is pleasing is much more unhappy than one
who pleases nobody.

REFLECTIONS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, BY THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

I. On Confidence.

Though sincerity and confidence have many points of resemblance, they
have yet many points of difference.

Sincerity is an openness of heart, which shows us what we are, a love
of truth, a dislike to deception, a wish to compensate our faults and to
lessen them by the merit of confessing them.

Confidence leaves us less liberty, its rules are stricter, it requires
more prudence and reticence, and we are not always free to give it. It
relates not only to ourselves, since our interests are often mixed
up with those of others; it requires great delicacy not to expose
our friends in exposing ourselves, not to draw upon their goodness to
enhance the value of what we give.

Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay
to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge which
gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily
submit. I do not wish from what I have said to depreciate confidence,
so necessary to man. It is in society the link between acquaintance and
friendship. I only wish to state its limits to make it true and real.
I would that it was always sincere, always discreet, and that it had
neither weakness nor interest. I know it is hard to place proper limits
on being taken into all our friends' confidence, and taking them into
all ours.

Most frequently we make confidants from vanity, a love of talking, a
wish to win the confidence of others, and make an exchange of secrets.

Some may have a motive for confiding in us, towards whom we have no
motive for confiding. With them we discharge the obligation in keeping
their secrets and trusting them with small confidences.

Others whose fidelity we know trust nothing to us, but we confide in
them by choice and inclination.

We should hide from them nothing that concerns us, we should always show
them with equal truth, our virtues and our vices, without exaggerating
the one or diminishing the other. We should make it a rule never to
have half confidences. They always embarrass those who give them, and
dissatisfy those who receive them. They shed an uncertain light on what
we want hidden, increase curiosity, entitling the recipients to know
more, giving them leave to consider themselves free to talk of wha