On People
The fundamental rule for the self-preservation of the ego: To excuse one’s own failures and weaknesses by finding excuses for other people's successes and strengths.
A circle of friends would be torn apart by gossip, envy, competitiveness and jealousy were it not for the glue that keeps it all together: secretiveness.
A friend must be successful enough to warrant our admiration but not successful enough to arouse our envy.
They say a person not pleased with themselves is incapable of pleasing others. On the contrary, a person not pleased with themselves is always pleasing to others.
Nothing offends our sensibilities more than those who lack the skill of talking about themselves without actually talking about themselves.
Aesthetics outweighs virtue as the true unit of social currency. In refined social circles, truth, virtue, morals or honesty are merely topics of gossip, while wit, charm, style and beauty are prerequisites for having the right to gossip at all.
Very few people can afford not to have a sense of humor about themselves and yet it still seems that so few people do.
People consumed with envy, competitiveness, ambition and jealousy are the most adamant in trying to convince us that they are free of all such vices. That's what gives them away.
Fear is the glue of society, gossip is its militia, opinion is its oppressor, eyes are its watchmen, ears are its sentinels, envy is its economy, accomplishments are its currency, and exclusion is an ever-present blade dangling over every member's head.
The give and take of compliments, favors, gratitude, sacrifices and regular gratuitous interactions are all part of the natural economy of a social circle. Gossip is how members of the circle are kept in line, fearful of what might be said behind their backs were they to forfeit their duties.
Esteem is hard to give but easy to retract.
In society, it's not what you say that earns people's respect but what you are able to leave unsaid.
Essentially, people are neither good nor bad. They are only ever one thing: self-interested.
Our inhibitions act as a savior when our exhibitions fail to substantiate.
The art of social interaction relies on knowing when and where to remain silent, and with whom.
If it weren’t for our prejudices, meeting new people would be so much more tiresome than it already is.
There is no such thing as an unprejudiced person. There are just those whose prejudices are known to them and who thus take their precautions accordingly without us ever suspecting those prejudices are even there.
We must be democratic with our prejudices and aristocratic with our tastes. But are tastes themselves not prejudices? They are, but they’re the prejudices we reserve for ourselves and those like us. The rest can be doled out evenly among — and against — others.
What we consider our tastes are the prejudices that we use to differentiate ourselves from others; what we call our prejudices are the tastes by which we differentiate others from ourselves.
When presenting oneself to others, one must be ambiguous and avoid definition and certainty altogether. The price of carelessness in this respect is finality, and this can only be of use to everyone but oneself.
To be totally dishonest about oneself is bad manners. To be totally honest about oneself is bad taste. But to be ambiguous about oneself is simply delicious.
Modesty was an old way of showing off; self-deprecation is the new way of showing off; showing off is the new way of being honest; as for being outright honest, that’s just showing off.
Most social interaction involves the exchange of stock utterances conveyed with stock expressions. Content is secondary to delivery, and what is actually said is trivial.
Those who "say it like it is" in social situations can be refreshing, but often miss the point of what social interaction is all about.
Truth is a luxury reserved for those who either play by the rules exceptionally well, or are out of the loop completely enough to not care about the consequences.
An insult is most disturbing precisely when it wasn’t meant as an insult. That’s when we can’t help but believe that what was said was really meant.
To claim never to have lost one’s innocence is an admirable virtue, but to have never even put it in danger of being lost is despicable.
A modest man is one who boasts of not needing to boast.
Actions can be all too readily displaced by words. Loquacity is usually the betrayer of impotence.
To not feel the need to impress others is the best way to impress others.
Those who hold diametrically opposed views are always the same kinds of people.
We feel sympathy for those who are weary of the world, but never for those who are frustrated with it.
Those who feel the need to offer their unsolicited opinions should think about how little they care for others' unsolicited opinions.
The person with keenest of ear and most sympathetic of complexions when listening to your problems has thereby shown the greatest interest in being seen and heard themselves, albeit without words.
Some people talk too much, lest it should be discovered they have nothing to say.
It’s rare to find people who truly listen, since everybody’s so busy trying to be heard.
The more people try to earn our attention, the less we believe they have anything worth saying.
Sometimes we maintain a person’s friendship just so we can talk badly about them with impunity.
The only thing more unsatisfying than the company of people is to have no people around you to be unsatisfied with.
When a person is predisposed to you in the right way, they will go so far as to consider your faults refreshing; and if they are predisposed to you in the wrong way, they will go so far as to consider your virtues the sign of weakness. People’s appreciation of us is often dependent not on our own actions but on whether or not they have it in mind to like us in the first place.
It is a limited and unenviable person who has not learned to value solitude, as limited and unenviable as the person who has not learned to value companionship.
“He talks about everything and nothing,” they say, with a condescending smile. But this is such a refreshing change, since most people just talk about themselves.
Our vanity tricks us into believing that the attentiveness on a listener's face is not instead the look of someone trying to concentrate on what they themselves are going to say when we're done speaking.
People we pay the least attention to always seem to have so much to say to us.
To talk about oneself is to challenge others into talking about themselves, and to provoke them into promoting themselves at least as determinedly as you’ve promoted yourself, although hopefully with less success.
We must learn to relish our own power. It is such poverty of spirit to have to blush in front of one who blushes in front of you.
There is no greater shame than needing recourse to dishonesty when explaining one's decisions to others. One can't help but feel that such a decision was the result of some kind of underlying failure.
It’s amazing what we can do when someone’s watching, almost as amazing as what we are capable of doing to make someone watch.
We daydream with an audience comprised of other people's eyes.
Our daydreams tell us what we want, our dreams tell us why we can’t have them.
For the most part, we prefer to have our minds occupied rather than engaged. This is more out of fear than laziness, because we're afraid of what we might find in there once we've cleared all the junk out of our heads.
We are occupied, defeated and conquered from birth. Our lives can either host those oppressors in subservient obeisance, or they can become fields of rebellion for the sake of freeing us from their insidious yoke.
Those who are afraid of knowing too much about themselves can find shelter in the chatter of society.
When nobody cares about you enough to tell you what they really think about you to your face, you can get by a long time in society thinking you're well liked.
Nothing is stranger than that which is normal to a stranger.
The perceived greatness of a person is often to be found not so much in that person as in the prejudices of posterity.
Sometimes we must put ourselves down in order to be heard all the better. People always listen when you have something bad to say about yourself.
People will listen only when they believe there will be something that concerns themselves. Thus we are all expert self-semioticians. We seek to find signs of ourselves in every sentence, every word, every gesture, and every glance.
When people put themselves down in good jest, we often feel a sense of gratitude at having been relieved of the task of doing it for them.
If you can get away with being a liar, a cheat and a phony, then the joke is on them, not you, because liars, cheats and phonies are the ones who make the world go round.
That which is exceptional must first be made familiar, and then superior, otherwise it will be debased, condemned, and even demonized.
It’s often the case that the horror of a person’s circumstances arouses a sense of horror toward the person themselves. This is because we know that it’s only a matter of fortune and coincidence that any person should not be our own selves, or that any circumstance should not also – and instead – have included us.
Everyone wants a piece of a good thing. Development of beauty, strength, intelligence and wisdom must proceed parallel with the development of a capacity for suspicion, secretiveness, cynicism and callousness. The price of exceptionality is always innocence.
To answer a question always seems to compromise one’s pride. This can be offset if our answer raises a question of its own, whether in content or in its tonality – in other words, if it compromises itself as an answer. This can often be referred to as wit and is apt revenge for having been put on the spot.
Laziness is the most primal human drive. The desire to do nothing guides all, but only until it encounters the desire for recognition.
The company of people is often unbearable, not because you think you could do without it, but precisely because you feel you can’t.
Two types of people: Those who wilt when surrounded by eyes, and those who rise.
Whom we seek the company of: Those we seek to prove ourselves to – those from whom we seek recognition.
Whom we find nice: Those whose recognition we are indifferent to, but are assured of.
Whom we find companionable: Those from whom we’ve assured ourselves recognition.
Whom we are embarrassed in the presence of: Those from whom we seek recognition of our desired selves, feeling our perceived selves unsatisfactory for recognition.
Whom we despise: Those whom we don’t consider worthy of our recognition.
Whom we love: Those whose recognition of us exceeds – and thus increases – our estimation of ourselves.
Whom we pity: Those who we know will never win our recognition as equals.
Whom we hate: Those who we know will never give us recognition as equals.
That which is controversial is thereby owed comment by its perpetrator, but by no means is it owed an explanation.
We’re only scornful of opportunists when they think they've successfully tricked us into thinking that they have no ulterior motives.
When deceitful people think they've deceived others, they also deceive themselves.
Sometimes it’s impossible to win people’s confidence without recourse to dishonesty and insincerity... almost as impossible as it is to keep people’s confidence through the same means.
The fear of showing weakness is the source of most people's fear.
Only the powerful can afford to have weaknesses, because they know they have nothing to fear from them.
Most people are willing to uphold their pride even at the price of dignity.
Most people's knowledge and ideas are but a show, just superficial enough to earn weight in social chatter without being deep enough to require any time away from it.
When a person has had to defend themselves, not even justice will heal the wounds completely.
The measure of a person’s social worth should be based on whether or not they have the capacity to speak about themselves as if they were speaking about somebody else.
Those who live beyond their capacity never seem to annoy us as much as those who live beneath their capacity.
We love people that come to us for recognition, and we also love people we go to for recognition, even though we despise the fact that we have to go to them at all.
The most noble feeling is neither love (which is cheap and common to all) nor pity (which sickens and debilitates); it’s the respect one feels for another regardless of whether one likes that person or not. Few can show this nobility without sliding into jealousy or wallowing in hatred, both of which inevitably perpetuate self-contempt.
Whether we can fool others is quite unimportant compared to whether we can successfully fool ourselves.
Success can best be measured by the envy it arouses rather than by the praise it elicits.
Everybody would like to be famous, but the truly talented always prefer to be infamous.
Fame is welcome compensation for the mediocre, but an unwelcome distraction for the gifted. That’s why the latter seek either anonymity or infamy. Fame pulls them down just a little too close to the masses, whereas infamy keeps them at a healthy distance from the mediocre.
When we have been wronged by someone, we are more irritated by the response that has been demanded of us than by the wrongful act that has been committed against us.
We usually don’t give advice for the sake of the advice itself, but for the sake of having given advice. It’s the perfect opportunity to establish our influence over someone while at the same time seeming to empathize with them.
If it weren’t for other peoples’ misfortune, we would never have the pleasure of giving advice.
Bettering oneself is the best possible pursuit, especially if one has nothing better to do.
Hardly ever do others see us as we see ourselves, or indeed as we would like ourselves to be seen, although whether they see us as we believe they see us cannot be said, and will never be said.
Hypocrisy is far easier seen in others than it is in oneself.
In social relations, ambiguity is sharpness, precision is clumsiness, and eccentricity is all too predictable.
When we are angry, we always expect the worst from people; when we are content, we always expect the best from people. Either way, they usually disappoint our expectations.
Indifference is a far greater insult than hatred.
Hatred is forever blind to its origins. That is its only justification.
We can only hate that which we fear yet are helpless to do anything about. The more potent our hatred, the greater the weakness from which it originates.
Wit before smartness, culture before knowledge, humor before insight. The former qualities are the outward projection of the respective latter and are indispensable elements for any harmonious social interaction. They are like a refined product that’s been carefully extracted and cultivated over time from their crude sources and are now presented to the delectation of only the finest social gourmands.
We are honest about ourselves in social circumstances to ingratiate ourselves to others, whereas we're only honest about others in social circumstances to demean them.
A thousand good things said about us will not even begin to make up for a single bad thing that has been said about us.
When speaking to people, listen to what they aren’t saying, because that’s what they’re really saying.
Vulnerability in the strong we consider endearing; vulnerability in the weak we find pitiful. Power is always the measure of our esteem.
One’s weaknesses can become one's strengths if one can admit to them honestly as weaknesses.
At the heart of all great and wonderful causes lie the most embarrassing motives.
When we’re ashamed of our feelings we often despise the person who has conjured them up.
We ask the questions that we want to be asked in return. An answer is only bearable as long as there is a prospect that soon it will be our turn to speak.
The endearing person’s most endearing qualities are not their strengths but their weaknesses.
Our firmest convictions always betray our deepest fears.
Sometimes we have to mock lest we be caught off guard by our own shortcomings.
Conscious non-conformity demands the most stringent rules to conform to, and thus only dedicated conformists can identify themselves as non-conformists. True non-conformists have no idea they’re abnormal.
When it comes to most non-conformists, we often mistake cowardice, laziness, ineptitude and convenience for courage, subversion and independence. That’s why we only really respect those non-conformists who were once successful conformists.
We should not discriminate against people based on their need to be seen, but rather on the basis of where they want to be seen, and by whom.
We flock together at every opportunity and then tell ourselves we can't stand anyone around us.
To win the full concentration of people’s attention, we must either be able to offend them, or at least give them the feeling that we have the potential to hurt them, to be able to make them face their own weaknesses. They must feel the need to defend and uphold themselves in our presence, as if rising to a challenge, so as to learn not to take even their own presence for granted, let alone ours.
How can we show such forceful preference, like or dislike, toward our fellow humans, afflicted as they are with the same condition, driven as they are by the same anxieties, forced as they are to deal with this affliction that is life, shared by all? We can only debate, vindicate or condemn a person’s manner and style of living, but never the person themselves.
Those who pride themselves on being loners spend their days in struggle with the phantoms of the people they know.
Contrary to popular belief, being a friend on a bad day is easy, it’s expected. Being there through all the average boring days is the stuff they should give a friend a medal for.
It's not people themselves we spend the most time interacting with, but our imaginations of those people, with whom we lock horns in secret battles in our minds.
One does not see how completely one has been eclipsed, how utterly forgotten one has become, until one realizes there is a whole other world that exists outside one's head, and that world is for the most part oblivious to us.
The most difficult task in life is knowing what to say, and when.
