>>11393058You should've understood this since Elementary school
>"This evil is no doubt greater and more common among the higher classes; but the lower are not
exempt from it, since there is always some advantage in making men love us. Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity
and without passion. Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others.
He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.
101. I set it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be
four friends in the world. This is apparent from the quarrels which arise from the indiscreet tales told from time to time"
Blaise Pascal
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