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To be ever active in laudable purfuits, is the diftinguishing characteristic of a man of merit.

THERE is an heroic innocence, as well as an heroic courage.

THERE is a mean in all things. Even virtue itfelf has its ftated limits; which not being strictly obferved, it ceafes to be virtue.

It is wifer to prevent a quarrel beforehand, than to re-. venge it afterwards.

No

It is much better to reprove, than to be angry fecretly. revenge is more heroic, than that which torments envy, by doing good.

THE difcretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass over a tranfgreffion.

MONEY, like manure, does no good till it is fpread. There is no real use of riches, except in the diftribution ; the reft is all conceit.

A WISE man will defire no more than what he may get juftly, ufe foberly, diftribute cheerfully, and live upon contentedly.

A CONTENTED mind, and a good confcience, will make a man happy in all conditions. He knows not how to fear, who dares to die.

THERE is but one way of fortifying the foul against all

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gloomy prefages and terrours of mind; and that is, by fecuring to ourselves the friendship and protection of that Being, who difposes of events, and governs futurity.

PHILOSOPHY is then only valuable, when it ferves for the law of life, and not for the oftentation of science.

W

CHAP. II.

ITHOUT a friend the world is but a wilderness.

A MAN may have a thousand intimate acquaintances, and not a friend among them all. If you have one friend, think yourself happy.

WHEN Once you profess yourself a friend, endeavour to be always fuch. He can never have any true friends, that will be often changing them.

PROSPERITY gains friends, and adverfity tries them. NOTHING more engages the affections of men, than á handfome addrefs, and graceful converfation.

COMPLAISANCE renders a fuperior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable.

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EXCESS of ceremony fhows want of breeding. That civility is beft which excludes all fuperfluous formality. INGRATITUDE is a crime fo fhameful, that the man was never yet found, who would acknowledge himfelf guilty of it.

TRUTH is born with us; and we must do violence to nature to fhake off our veracity.

THERE cannot be a greater treachery, than firft to raise a confidence, and then deceive it.

By others faults, wife men correct their own.

No man has a thorough tafte of profperity, to whom adverfity never happened.

WHEN our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we leave them.

IT

Ir is as great a point of wifdom to hide ignorance, as to difcover knowledge.

PITCH upon that courfe of life, which is the most excellent, and habit will render it the most delightful.

CHAP. III.

CUSTOM is the plague of wife men, and the idol of

fools.

As to be perfectly juft, is an attribute of the divine na ture; to be fo to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

No man was ever caft down with the injuries of fortune, unless he had before fuffered him felf to be deceived by her favours.

ANGER may glance into the breaft of a wife man, but refts only in the bofom of fools.

NONE more impatiently fuffer injuries, than those that are most forward in doing them.

By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in paffing it over, he is fuperior.

To err is human: to forgive, divine.

A MORE glorious victory cannot be gained over another man, than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness should begin on ours.

THE prodigal robs his heir, the miser robs himself.

WE fhould take a prudent care for the future, but fo as to enjoy the prefent. It is no part of wisdom to be miferable to day, because we may happen to be fo to morrow.

To mourn without meafure is fully; not to mourn at all, infenfibility.

SOME would be thought to do great things, who are but tools and inftruments; like the fool who fancied he played upon the organ, when he only blew the bellows.

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THOUGH a man may become learned by another's learning, he never can be wife but by his own wifdom,

He who wants good fenfe, is unhappy in having learning, for he has thereby more ways of expofing himself.

Ir is ungenerous to give a man occafion to blush at his own ignorance in one thing, who perhaps may excel us in

many.

No object is more pleafing to the eye, than the fight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any mufic fo agreeable to the ear, as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor.

THE coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is, that by hearing what we are not, we may be inftructed what we ought to be.

THE character of the perfon who commends you is to be confidered, before you fet a value on his esteem. The wife man applauds him whom he thinks most virtuous, the rest of the world him who is most wealthy.

THE temperate man's pleafures are durable, because they are regular; and all his life is calm and ferene, because it is innocent.

A GOOD man will love himfelf too well to lose, and his neighbour too well to win, an estate by gaming. The love of gaming will corrupt the best principles in the world.

CHAP. IV.

An angry man who fuppreffes his paflions, thinks worfe than he fpeaks; and an angry man that will chide, fpeaks worse than he thinks.

A GOOD word is an eafy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our filence, which cofts us nothing.

Ir is to affectation the world owes its whole race of coxcombs. Nature in her whole drama never drew fuch a

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part; fhe has fometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of his own making.

Ir is the infirmity of little minds, to be taken with every appearance, and dazzled with every thing that sparkles; but great minds have but little admiration, because few things appear new to them.

It happens to men of learning, as to ears of corn; they fhoot up and raife their heads high while they are empty; but when full and fwelled with grain, they begin to flag and droop.

He that is truly polite, knows how to contradict with refpect, and to pleafe without adulation; and is equally remote from an infipid complaifance, and a low familiarity.

THE failings of good men are commonly more published in the world than their good deeds;, and one fault of a deferving man fhall meet with more reproaches, than all his virtues, praife: fuch is the force of ill will and

ill nature.

Ir is harder to avoid cenfure than to gain applaufe; for this may be done by one great or wife action in an age: but to escape cenfure, a man muft pafs his whole life without faying or doing one ill or foolish thing.

WHEN Darius offered Alexander ten thoufand talents to divide Afia equally with him, he answered, the earth cannot bear two funs, nor Afia two kings. Parinenio, a friend of Alexander's, hearing the great offers Datius had made, faid, Were 1 Alexander I would accept them. So would I, replied Alexander, were I Parmenio.

NOBILITY is to be confidered only as an imaginary dif tinction, unless accompanied with the practice of thofe generous virtues by which it ought to be obtained. Titles of honour, conferred upon fuch as have no perfonal merit, are at best but the royal ftainp fet upon base metal.

THOUGH an honourable title may be conveyed to pofterity, yet the ennobling qualities, which are the foul of great

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nefs,

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