Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	hear_v	speak_v	word_n	7,138	5	4.4441	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31196	The art of complaisance, or, The means to oblige in conversation	S. C.	1673 (1673)	Wing C119; ESTC R10330	48,007	195

agreeable and esteemed of all These means if managed with Artifice and discretion have a certain occult power to move and dispose the mind to give faith and credit to him who serves himself of them I have said discretion because we may sometimes meet with persons of that nature though they are very rare at Court which are at such a distance from that ordinary vanity that they look with too much suspition and distrust on this kind of procedure For this reason with such persons as are free from affectation we must venture upon such complements onely in such occasions where custom renders them necessary or at least when we are moved to it in the pursuit of our discourse or affairs testifying in us rather the constancy and firm resolution of our inclinations then the violence of a vehement affection which may be suspected either of inconstancy flattery or design In the answers that we make to such Complements let us govern our selves with the same measure and temperament but particularly in our answer to the acknowledgements of obligations or benefits received from us we must extenuate them without diminishing them more then is convenient which some as vainly as imprudently do because that lessening them too much as by saying that they are but such common Courtesies as we shew to any other we accuse the judgement of him who is pleased to set another value upon them and who believes he has a pledge of our good will more then Common which we diminish in diminishing the benefit and by this means we debase him who thinks himself numbered amongst our friends equal with those who are not For this reason though indeed it was our duty alone which moved us to do him this pleasure we may show as if a particular affection contributed something provided it be always done without vanity This is all that I shall say in general of these kind of affairs which if practised with prudence serve very much to gain us credit and esteem whereas on the contrary If they be not accompanied with discretion become ridiculous and being omitted attend those who expect them of us After I have spoken so largely of Complaisance and the several parts and kinds of it in the next place I think convenient to speak something of Conversation and the several species of it CHAP. VI. Of Conversation ALL the world must acknowledge that it is Conversation which contributes to render men sociable and makes up the greatest commerce of our life so that we may say that 't is impossible to take too much care to render our discourse pleasing and profitable Memory may furnish us with matter to maintain it but it can give us nothing but what we have treasured up before so that it is necessary that we labor to inrich it with a great number of the choicest things that it may make us restitution when we have occasion for them yet how necessary soever its succours may be it alone suffices not to make us successful in Conversation since it is required that judgement be joyned with it to regulate what we have to speak and to engage us to view with circumspection what we are obliged to observe it forbids us to speak gallantries to an old and austere Doctor and to entertain young Ladies with discourses of Geometry for though a man should speak admirably of both these things yet he would not fail to be thought very tedious to those whose humours are at enmity with such conversation so that it is not onely necessary to speak excellently of things but it is also necessary that those discourses be well timed and placed for the eyes which exceed in lustre the other parts of the face would render us monstrous if they were not placed where nature design'd them It is then necessary to observe well all the Circumstances which regard those persons to whom we speak the place where they are and the subject wherewith we entertain them for when the subject should be great and elevated we must not speak with a light and wanton air and how knowing so ere we are we may happily testifie a too great concernment to make appear our knowledge on the contrary we must give to the rest of the Company time to speak their thoughts that we may not draw upon our selves the same reproach that a Lady very pleasantly made to one of her friends that friend who was a Gentleman doubtless of very great learning so deeply plung'd himself one day into a discourse of politicks speaking of the Conduct of Philip the second that forced the Lady I speak of to interrupt him after she had thus patiently heard him a very long time Why Sir said she to him will you be wise from morning night We ought always in our discourse to have regard to Truth as the ground of Conversation but to avoid involving my self in those great questions concerning truth I shall content my self to say that it is a conformity of our words with our thoughts without determining whether there ought to be a precise similitude of the thoughts we express to the thing we have in our mind This vertue is so extensive that it is of general profit upon which all the commerce of this life might be very solidly establish'd If men loved it so much as they are enemies to it The most flourishing nations have always had truth in a particular veneration the Persians according to Herodotus instructed their Children to speak it very exactly and endebted persons were onely held in such contempt amongst them because they presumed they were constrained to lie often when they convers'd with their Creditors we see by our own experience that our own nation show themselves such friends to Truth that they think nothing more offensive then when any gives another the lie Yet many persons Imagine that none can prosper in their designs at Court without a continual dissimulation and making a particular profession never to speak their true thoughts that errour is almost general yet a reasonable distinction may draw us out of it I confess that a man to whom one hath Intrusted a secret is obliged to be faithful and not to discover what is important to be conceal'd it is not necessary that a Courtier who aspires to some employment proclaim his pretentions or discover the means he intends to make use of since his Competitour may draw from thence an advantage to his prejudice but in the ordinary course of a mans life for what reason is he bound to lie perpetually and to make a vertue of so great a vice Can it be believed that a man who Caresses indifferently all the world and who promises all those who make any address to him to serve them without any such Intention can make himself many friends or establish himself in a reputation of being civil and obliging on the contrary though he blind them at present by such procedure it will not be long before they be disabused