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515.

The calm or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the important events of life, as on an agreeable or disagreeable adjustment of little things which happen every day.

516.

However wicked men may be, they dare not appear to be enemies of virtue; and when they wish to persecute it, they pretend to believe that it is false, or suppose it capable of crimes.

517.

Men often proceed from love to ambition, but they seldom return from ambition to love.

518.

Extreme avarice almost always mistakes itself; there is no passion which more often

517. "Les hommes commencent par l'amour, finissent par l'ambition, et ne se trouvent dans une assiette plus tranquille, que lorsqu'ils meurent."-LA BRUYERE, Du Coeur.

"He who admits ambition to the companionship of love, admits a giant that outstrides the gentler footsteps of its comrade."-SIR E. B. LYTTON, Harold.

deprives itself of its object, nor on which the present exercises so much power to the prejudice of the future.

519.

Avarice often produces opposite effects; there is an infinite number of people who sacrifice all their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others despise great future advantages to obtain present interests of a trifling

nature.

520.

It would seem that men do not find enough defects in themselves; they augment the number by certain singular qualities which they affect to put on, and these they cultivate with so much assiduity, that they become at length natural defects which are no longer capable of correction.

521.

One fact which lets us see that men are better acquainted with their faults than is generally thought, is, that they are never wrong when they speak of their own conduct; the same self-love which generally blinds, on such occasions enlightens them, and gives them views so just as to make them suppress or dis

guise the least things which might be condemned.

522

Young people on entering the world should be either timid or giddy; a composed and settled demeanor generally changes into imperti

nence.

523.

Quarrels would not last long, if the fault was only on one side.

524.

It is of no advantage to a woman to be young without being pretty, or to be pretty without being young.

525.

There are some persons so fickle and frivolous, that they are as far from having real faults as solid qualities.

526.

A woman's first gallantry is not generally reckoned until she has had a second.

527.

There are some people so full of themselves, that when they are in love, they find means to

be occupied with their passion, without being so with the person they love.

528.

Love, all agreeable as it is, is more pleasing from the manner in which it displays itself than from its own nature.

529.

A small degree of wit accompanied by good sense is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.

530.

Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the least pitied by those who cause it.

531.

Great souls are not those which have less passion and more virtue than common souls, but those only which have greater designs.

529. "You know, Mr. Spectator, that a man of wit may extremely affect one for the present, but if he has not discretion his merit soon vanishes away: while a wise man that has not so great a stock of wit, shall nevertheless give you a far greater and more lasting satisfaction."-Spectator, No. 244.

532.

Natural ferocity makes fewer cruel people than self-love.

533.

To be always good others must believe that they can never appear wicked to us with impunity.

534.

When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

535.

Those who are incapable of committing

534.

"Navibus atque

Quadrigis petimus bene vivere; quod petis, hic est,
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit æquus."

See also Od. ii. 16, 19:

HORACE, Ep. i. 11, 28.

"Patriæ quis exul

Se quoque fugit?"

Which Byron apparently had in view in his song to Inez,

Childe Harold, canto i.

"What exile from himself can flee?

To zones though more and more remote,

Still, still pursues, where'er I be,

The blight of life-the demon Thought."

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