["The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit."—Swift, Thoughts On Various Subjects]
228.—Pride will not owe, self-love will not pay.
229.—The good we have received from a man should make us excuse the wrong he does us.
230.—Nothing is so infectious as example, and we never do great good or evil without producing the like. We imitate good actions by emulation, and bad ones by the evil of our nature, which shame imprisons until example liberates.
231.—It is great folly to wish only to be wise.
232.—Whatever pretext we give to our afflictions it is always interest or vanity that causes them.
233.—In afflictions there are various kinds of hypocrisy. In one, under the pretext of weeping for one dear to us we bemoan ourselves; we regret her good opinion of us, we deplore the loss of our comfort, our pleasure, our consideration. Thus the dead have the credit of tears shed for the living. I affirm 'tis a kind of hypocrisy which in these afflictions deceives itself. There is another kind not so innocent because it imposes on all the world, that is the grief of those who aspire to the glory of a noble and immortal sorrow. After Time, which absorbs all, has obliterated what sorrow they had, they still obstinately obtrude their tears, their sighs their groans, they wear a solemn face, and try to persuade others by all their acts, that their grief will end only with their life. This sad and distressing vanity is commonly found in ambitious women. As their sex closes to them all paths to glory, they strive to render themselves celebrated by showing an inconsolable affliction. There is yet another kind of tears arising from but small sources, which flow easily and cease as easily. One weeps to achieve a reputation for tenderness, weeps to be pitied, weeps to be bewept, in fact one weeps to avoid the disgrace of not weeping!
["In grief the {Pleasure} is still uppermost{;} and the affliction we suffer has no resemblance to absolute pain which is always odious, and which we endeavour to shake off as soon as possible."—Burke, Sublime And Beautiful{, (1756), Part I, Sect. V}.]
234.—It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.
235.—We are easily consoled at the misfortunes of our friends when they enable us to prove our tenderness for them.