10 lessons on the dark side of human nature

1. Fear is a performance-enhancing drug. La Rochefoucauld noted in 1665: "We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears." It's called "carrot and stick" for a reason.

2. Love needs turbulence: "Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear." (La Rochefoucauld) Lesson: Perfect stability is where love goes to die.

3. People hate you for helping them because a) it proves you're "better" b) it puts them in your debt. La Rochefoucauld wrote: "Men hate those who have obliged them...the necessity of returning a favor seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit."

4. No one treats you worse than you. La Rochefoucauld: "We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and betrayed by our friends, yet still we are often content to be thus served by ourselves." You won't take betrayal from others. Don't take it from yourself either.

5. Only the monster can be nice. La Rochefoucauld: "No one should be praised for his goodness if he has not strength enough to be wicked. All other goodness is but too often an idleness or powerlessness of will."

6. The Problem of Borrowed Desire. La Rochefoucauld wrote: “There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.” Take the average person—delete the convictions downloaded from the zeitgeist, take out the goals copied from others, remove the desires borrowed from pop culture—and you won't have much left.

7. The weak are forever insincere. This is because sincerity is downstream of strength. La Rochefoucauld noted: “Weak people cannot be sincere.” If you feel strong and capable, you’ll be honest about your intentions and aims. But if you feel weak and incapable, you’ll put on an insincere performance to get through the day scratch-free.

8. Good luck is a torchlight. You might not like what it reveals. La Rochefoucauld said: "Fortune makes visible our virtues or our vices, as light does objects."

9. Most people love love, not their lover. La Rochefoucauld wrote that people love the feeling of love—not the imperfect, flesh-and-bones human in front of them. That person is merely a means to an end…

10. Moderation is secretly a vice. La Rochefoucauld explains: "Moderation is made a virtue to limit the ambition of the great; to console ordinary people for their small fortune and equally small ability." Moderation is a tool used by the small to cut the big down to their size.

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I’ve collected hundreds of such ideas in Bangers, my new book!

Find inside:

• 100+ (even darker) lessons from La Rochefoucauld

• Colton’s Rule of Fire

• Goethe’s Theory of Art

• Joubert on the Question of Fun

• Nietzsche’s hot takes on everything

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