We ought to distrust our passions, even when they appear the most reasonable.

It is idle, as well as absurd, to impose our opinions upon others. The same ground of conviction operates differently on the same man in different circumstances, and on different men in the same circumstances.

Choose what is most fit; custom will make it the most agreeable.

A cheerful countenance betokens a good heart. Hypocrisy is a homage that vice pays to virtue. Anxiety and constraint are the constant attendants of pride.

Men make themselves ridiculous, not so much by the qualities they have, as by the affectation of those they have not.

Nothing blunts the edge of ridicule so effectually as good humor.

To say little and perform much, is the characteristic of a great mind.

A man who gives his children a habit of industry, provides for them better than by giving them a stock of money.

II.

UR good or bad fortune depends greatly on the choice we make of our friends.

The young are slaves to novelty, the old to custom. No preacher is so successful as time. It gives a turn of thought to the aged, which it was impossible to inspire while they were young.

Every man however little makes a figure in his own eyes. Self-partiality hides from us those very faults in ourselves, which we see and blame in others.

The injuries we do, and those we suffer, are seldom weighed in the same balance.

Men generally put a greater value upon the favors they bestow, than upon those they receive.

He who is puffed up with the first gale of prosperity, will bend beneath the first blast of adversity.

Adversity borrows its sharpest sting from our impatience.

Men commonly owe their virtue, or their vice, to education as much as to nature.

There is no such fop as my young master, of his lady mother's making. She blows him up with self-conceit, and there he stops. She makes a man of him at twelve, and a boy all his life after.

An infallible way to make your child miserable, is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his desires, will oblige you to stop short at last, after he has become headstrong..

WE

HI.

E esteem most things according to their intrinsic merit; it is strange MAN should be an exception. We prize a horse for his strength and courage, not for his furniture: We prize a man for his sumptuous palace, his great train, his vast revenue; yet these are his furniture, not his mind.

The true conveniences of life are common to the king with his meanest subjet: the king's sleep is not sweeter, nor his appetite better.

t

The pomp which distinguishes the great man from the mob, defends him not from the fever, nor from grief.Give a prince all the names of majesty that are found in a folio dictionary, the first attack of the gout will make him forget his palace and his guards. If he be in choler, will his princedom secure him from turning pale, and gnashing his teeth like a fool? The smallest prick of a nail, the slightest passion of the soul, is capable of rendering insipid the monarchy of the world.

Narrow minds think nothing right that is above their own capacity.

Those who are the most faulty, are most prone to find faults in others.

The first and most important female quality is sweetness of temper. Heaven did not give to the female sex insinuation and persuasion, in order to be surly; it did not make them weak, in order to be imperious; it did not give them a sweet voice, in order to be employed in scolding; it did not provide them with delicate features, in order to be disfigured with anger.

Let fame be regarded, but conscience much more. It is an empty joy to appear better than you are; but a great blessing to be what you ought to be.

Let your conduct be the result of deliberation, never of impatience.

In the conduct of life let it be one great aim to show that every thing you do proceeds from yourself, not from your passions. Chrysippus rewards in joy, chastises in wrath, doth every thing in passion. No person stands in awe of Chrysippus, no person is grateful to him. Why? Because it is not Chrysippus who acts, but his passions. We shun him in wrath, as we shun a wild beast; and this is all the authority he hath over us.

Indulge not desire, at the expense of the slightest article of virtue; pass once its limits, and you fall headlong into vice.

Examine well the counsel that favors your desires. The gratification of desire, is sometimes the worst thing that can befal us.

IV.

O be angry, is to punish myself for the fault of an

To

A word dropped by chance from your friend, offends your delicacy: Avoid a hasty reply; and beware of opening your discontent to the first person you meet: When you are cool it will vanish, and leave no impression.

The most profitable revenge, the most rational, and the most pleasant, is to make it the interest of the injurious person, not to hurt you a second time.

It was a saying of Socrates, that we should eat and drink in order to live; instead of living, as may do, in order to eat and drink.

Be moderate in your pleasures, that your relish for them may continue. Time is requisite to bring great projects to maturity. Precipitation ruins the best contrived plan; patience ripens the most difficult.

When we sum up the miseries of life, the grief bestowed on trifles makes a great part of the account; trifles, which, neglected, are nothing. How shameful such a weakness!

The pensionary De Wit being asked how he could transact such a variety of business without confusion, answered, that he never did but one thing at a time.

Guard your weak side from being known. If it be at✓ tacked, the best way is to join in the attack.

Francis I. consulting with his generals how to lead his army over the Alps, into Italy; Amarel, his fool, sprung from a corner, and advised him to consult rather how to bring it back.

The best practical rule of morality is, never to do but what you are willing all the world should know.

Solicitude in hiding failings makes them appear the greater: It is a safer and easier course, frankly to acknowledge them. A man owns that he is ignorant; we admire his modesty : He says he is old; we scarce think him so: He declares himself poor; we do not believe it.

When you descant on the faults of others, consider whether you be not guilty of the same. To gain knowledge of ourselves the best way is to convert the imperfections of others into a mirror for discovering our own.

Apply yourself more to acquire knowledge than to show it. Men commonly take great pains to put off the little stock they have; but they take little pains to acquire