and
avoiding all they do not agree with.

Every kind of conversation, however witty it may be, is not equally
fitted for all clever persons; we should select what is to their taste
and suitable to their condition, their sex, their talents, and also
choose the time to say it.

We should observe the place, the occasion, the temper in which we find
the person who listens to us, for if there is much art in speaking to
the purpose, there is no less in knowing when to be silent. There is
an eloquent silence which serves to approve or to condemn, there is a
silence of discretion and of respect. In a word, there is a tone, an
air, a manner, which renders everything in conversation agreeable or
disagreeable, refined or vulgar.

But it is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay
down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is
to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that will ever give
ground for regret.

VI. Falsehood.

We are false in different ways. There are some men who are false from
wishing always to appear what they are not. There are some who have
better faith, who are born false, who deceive themselves, and who never
see themselves as they really are; to some is given a true understanding
and a false taste, others have a false understanding and some
correctness in taste; there are some who have not any falsity either in
taste or mind. These last are very rare, for to speak generally, there
is no one who has not some falseness in some corner of his mind or his
taste.

What makes this falseness so universal, is that as our qualities are
uncertain and confused, so too, are our tastes; we do not see things
exactly as they are, we value them more or less than they are worth,
and do not bring them into unison with ourselves in a manner which suits
them or suits our condition or qualities.

This mistake gives rise to an infinite number of falsities in the taste
and in the mind. Our self-love is flattered by all that presents itself
to us under the guise of good.

But as there are many kinds of good which affect our vanity and our
temper, so they are often followed from custom or advantage. We follow
because the others follow, without considering that the same feeling
ought not to be equally embarrassing to all kinds of persons, and that
it should attach itself more or less firmly, according as persons agree
more or less with those who follow them.

We dread st