Part 12 (1/2)

284.--There are wicked people who would be much less dangerous if they were wholly without goodness.

285.--Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most n.o.ble way of receiving praise.

286.--It is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really ceased to love.

287.--Fertility of mind does not furnish us with so many resources on the same matter, as the lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each thing our imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning which is the best.

288.--There are matters and maladies which at certain times remedies only serve to make worse; true skill consists in knowing when it is dangerous to use them.

289.--Affected simplicity is refined imposture.

[Domitia.n.u.s simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine studium litterarum et amorem carminum simulabat quo velaret animum et fratris aemulationi subduceretur.--Tacitus, Ann. iv.]

290.--There are as many errors of temper as of mind.

291.--Man's merit, like the crops, has its season.

292.--One may say of temper as of many buildings; it has divers aspects, some agreeable, others disagreeable.

293.--Moderation cannot claim the merit of opposing and overcoming Ambition: they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and sloth of the soul, Ambition its activity and heat.

294.--We always like those who admire us, we do not always like those whom we admire.

295.--It is well that we know not all our wishes.

296.--It is difficult to love those we do not esteem, but it is no less so to love those whom we esteem much more than ourselves.

297.--Bodily temperaments have a common course and rule which imperceptibly affect our will. They advance in combination, and successively exercise a secret empire over us, so that, without our perceiving it, they become a great part of all our actions.

298.--The grat.i.tude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

[Hence the common proverb ”Grat.i.tude is merely a lively sense of favors to come.”]

299.--Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many people show grat.i.tude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not show ingrat.i.tude for great favours.