220.—Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.
["Vanity bids all her sons be brave and all her daughters chaste and courteous. But why do we need her instruction?"—Sterne, Sermons.]
221.—We do not wish to lose life; we do wish to gain glory, and this makes brave men show more tact and address in avoiding death, than rogues show in preserving their fortunes.
222.—Few persons on the first approach of age do not show wherein their body, or their mind, is beginning to fail.
223.—Gratitude is as the good faith of merchants: it holds commerce together; and we do not pay because it is just to pay debts, but because we shall thereby more easily find people who will lend.
224.—All those who pay the debts of gratitude cannot thereby flatter themselves that they are grateful.
225.—What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.
["The first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and may be returned."—Junius's Letter To The King.]
226.—Too great a hurry to discharge of an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
227.—Lucky people are bad hands at correcting their faults; they always believe that they are right when fortune backs up their vice or folly.