Part 3 (2/2)

48.--Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

49.--We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.

50.--Those who think they have merit persuade themselves that they are honoured by being unhappy, in order to persuade others and themselves that they are worthy to be the b.u.t.t of fortune.

[”Ambition has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is{, that where} we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other.” --Burke, {On The Sublime And Beautiful, (1756), Part I, Sect. XVII}.]

{The translators' incorrectly cite Speech On Conciliation With America.

Also, Burke does not actually write ”Ambition has been...”, he writes ”It has been...” when speaking of ambition.}

51.--Nothing should so much diminish the satisfaction which we feel with ourselves as seeing that we disapprove at one time of that which we approve of at another.

52.--Whatever difference there appears in our fortunes, there is nevertheless a certain compensation of good and evil which renders them equal.

53.--Whatever great advantages nature may give, it is not she alone, but fortune also that makes the hero.

54.--The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

[”It is always easy as well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.”--Gibbon, Decline And Fall, Chap. 15.]

55.--The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.

56.--To establish ourselves in the world we do everything to appear as if we were established.

57.--Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.

58.--It would seem that our actions have lucky or unlucky stars to which they owe a great part of the blame or praise which is given them.

59.--There are no accidents so unfortunate from which skilful men will not draw some advantage, nor so fortunate that foolish men will not turn them to their hurt.

60.--Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles.

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