253.—Interest sets at work all sorts of virtues and vices.
254.—Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant others. It is one of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the form of humility.
["Grave and plausible enough to be thought fit for business."—Junius, Letter To The Duke Of Grafton.
"He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And the devil was pleased, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility." Southey, Devil's Walk.]
{There are numerous corrections necessary for this quotation; I will keep the original above so you can compare the correct passages:
"He passed a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility, And he owned with a grin, That his favourite sin Is pride that apes humility." —Southey, Devil's Walk, Stanza 8.
"And the devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility." —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Devil's Thoughts}
255.—All feelings have their peculiar tone of voice, gestures and looks, and this harmony, as it is good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, makes people agreeable or disagreeable.
256.—In all professions we affect a part and an appearance to seem what we wish to be. Thus the world is merely composed of actors.
["All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."—Shakespeare, As You Like It{, Act II, Scene VII, Jaques}.