Hope is to confuse the desire that something should occur with the probability that it will.  Perhaps no man is free from this folly of the heart, which deranges the intellect’s correct estimation of probability to such a degree as to make him think the event quite possible, even if the chances are only a thousand to one.  And still, an unexpected misfortune is like a speedy death-stroke; while a hope that is always frustrated, and yet springs into life again, is like death by slow torture.

He who has given up hope has also given up fear; this is the meaning of the expression desperate.  It is natural for a man to have faith in what he wishes, and to have faith in it because he wishes it.  If this peculiarity of his nature, which is both beneficial and comforting, is eradicated by repeated hard blows of fate, and he is brought to a converse condition, when he believes that something must happen because he does not wish it, and what he wishes can never happen just because he wishes it; this is, in reality, the state which has been called desperation.

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That we are so often mistaken in others is not always precisely due to our faulty judgment, but springs, as a rule as Bacon says, from intellectus luminis sicci non est, sec recipit infusionem a voluntate et affectibus:  for without knowing it, we are influenced for or against them by trifles from the very beginning.  It also often lies in the fact that we do not adhere to the qualities which we really discover in them, but conclude from these that there are others which we consider inseparable from, or at any rate incompatible with, them.  For instance, when we discern generosity, we conclude there is honesty; from lying we conclude there is deception; from deception, stealing, and so on; and this opens the door to many errors, partly because of the peculiarity of human nature, and partly because of the one-sidedness of our point of view.  It is true that character is always consistent and connected; but the roots of all its qualities lies too deep to enable one to decide from special data in a given case which qualities can, and which cannot exist together.

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The use of the word person in every European language to signify a human individual is unintentionally appropriate; persona really means a player’s mask, and it is quite certain that no one shows himself as he is, but that each wears a mask and plays a role.  In general, the whole of social life is a continual comedy, which the worthy find insipid, whilst the stupid delight in it greatly.

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It often happens that we blurt out things that may in some kind of way be harmful to us, but we are silent about things that may make us look ridiculous; because in this case effect follows very quickly on cause.

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