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

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

CHAP. II.

WITHOUT 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 profefs 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 a handsome addrefs, and graceful conversation.

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

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

TRUTH

TRUTH is born with us: and we must do violence to nature, to shake off our veracity.

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

By others' faults, wife men correct their own.

No man hath a thorough tafte of profperity, to whom adversity never happened.

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

Ir is as great a point of wisdom 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.

СНАР. III.

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

fools.

As to be perfectly juft, is an attribute of the Divine Nature; to be so 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 suffered himself to be deceived by her favours.

ANGER may glance into the breast 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

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man than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness should begin on ours.

THE prodigal robs his heir; the mifer robs himself.

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

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To mourn without meafure is folly; 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.

THOUGH a man may become learned by another's learning; he never can be wife but by his own wisdom.

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

Ir is ungenerous to give a man occasion 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.

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

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

A GOOD

A GOOD man will love himself too well to lofe, 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 paffions, thinks worse

than he speaks; and an angry man that will chide, speaks 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 such a part; fhe has fometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of his own making.

It is the infirmity of little minds to be taken with every appearance, and dazzled with every thing that fparkles; 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 head's 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 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, praise fuch is the force of ill-will, and ill-nature. It is harder to avoid cenfure, than to gain applause; for be done by one great or wife action in an age; but

this may

to escape cenfure, a man must pafs his whole life without faying or doing one ill or foolish thing.

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

NOBILITY is to be confidered only as an imaginary diftinction, unless accompanied with the practice of those 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 stamp fet upon base metal.

THOUGH an honourable title may be conveyed to pofterity, yet the ennobling qualities which are the foul of greatnefs, are a fort of incommunicable perfections, and cannot be transferred. If a man could bequeath his virtues by will, and fettle his fenfe and learning upon his heirs, as certainly as he can his lands, a noble descent would then indeed be a very valuable privilege.

TRUTH is always confiftent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and fits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware: whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

THE pleasure which affects the human mind, with the most lively and tranfporting touches, is the fenfe that we act in the eye of infinite wifdom, power, and goodness, that will crown our virtuous endeavours here with a happiness hereafter, large as our defires, and lafting as our immortal fouls; without this the highest state of life is infipid, and with it the lowest is a paradise.

CHAP

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