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Honor acquired is security for that which should be acquired.

282.

Youth is perpetual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.

283.

We like to divine others, but we do not like to be divined ourselves.

284.

Some people obtain the approbation of the

reasonable that the life of a wise man should depend on the judgment of fools?"

"Nous

La Bruyère has a remark to the same purport:cherchons notre bonheur hors de nous-mêmes et dans l'opinion des hommes que nous connaissons flatteurs, peu sincères, sans équité, pleins d'envie, de caprices, et de préventions. Quelle bizarrerie ?"-De l'Homme.

world, whose only merit consists in the vices which serve to carry on the commerce of life.

285.

Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome malady.

286.

Absence diminishes moderate passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes tapers and adds fury to fire.

287.

Good nature, which boasts of so much sensibility, is often stifled by the most petty in

terest.

288.

Women often fancy themselves in love even when they are not. The occupation of an in

285. "People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy."-STERNE, Koran. See Plato's account of Herodicus, Repub. book 3.

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288. "Peut-être dans le cours de la vie une véritable passion; surement des gouts en assez grand nombre pris pour l'amour; une femme s'est fait enfin une habitude de la faiblesse, et elle se croit perpetuellement victime de la sensibilité de son cœur quand elle ne l'est que de son

trigue, the emotion of mind which gallantry produces, the natural leaning to the pleasure of being loved, and the pain of refusing, persuade them that they feel the passion of love, when, in reality, they feel nothing but coquetry.

289.

What makes us often discontented with negotiators is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for that of the success of the negotiation, which becomes their own, from the credit of having succeeded in their undertaking.

290.

When we dilate upon the affection of our

manque de principes, de la moins excusable coquetterie, et du dérèglement de son esprit."-CREBILLON, Ah quel conte. "And if in fact she takes to a 'grande passion,'

It is a very serious thing indeed!

Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion,
Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead:
The pride of a mere child with a new sash on,

Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed;

But the tenth instance will be a tornado,

For there's no saying what they will or may do."

BYRON, Don Juan, canto 12,

290. This observation will, perhaps, remind the reader of Rousseau's account of his interview with his friend Di

friends, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to convey an opinion of our own merit.

291.

The approbation bestowed on those who are entering the world often arises from a secret envy of those already established in it.

292.

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, serves also to moderate it.

293.

Some disguised falsehoods represent the

derot, then a prisoner at the Castle of Vincennes :-"Son premier mouvement sorti de mes bras fut de se tourner vers l'ecclésiastique, et de lui dire, 'Vous voyez, monsieur, comment m'aiment mes amis.' Tout entier à mon émotion je ne réfléchis pas d'abord à cette manière d'en tirer avantage, mais en y pensant quelquefois depuis ce temps-là, j'ai toujours jugé qu'à la place de Diderot ce n'eut pas été la première idée qui me serait venue."-Conf. book viii.

292. "The reason why men of true good sense envy less than others, is, because they admire themselves with less hesitation than fools and silly people; for, though they do not show this to others, yet the solidity of their thinking gives them an assurance of their real worth, which men of weak understanding never feel within, though they often counterfeit it.”—MANDEVILLE, Fable of the Bees. Remark N.

truth so well, that it would be bad judgment not to be deceived by them.

294.

There is sometimes as much ability in knowing how to profit by good advice as in arriving at a correct opinion ourselves.

295.

Some bad people would be less dangerous if they had not some goodness.

296.

Magnanimity is well enough defined by its name; nevertheless, we may say that it is the

295. "In the law of the leprosy, where it is said, 'If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean, but if there be any whole flesh remaining he is to be shut up for unclean,' one of them (the Rabbins) noteth a principle of nature, that putrefaction is more dangerous before maturity than after, and another noteth a position in moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners as those that are half good and half evil."-BACON, Advancement of Learning, b. i.

296. Compare Aristotle's elaborate delineation of the character of the Magnanimous Man, (Eth. Nicom. b. 4,) which, however, seems to lack the few fine but expressive touches of La Rochefoucauld. See Maxim 260.

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