272.—Nothing should so humiliate men who have deserved great praise, as the care they have taken to acquire it by the smallest means.
273.—There are persons of whom the world approves who have no merit beyond the vices they use in the affairs of life.
274.—The beauty of novelty is to love as the flower to the fruit; it lends a lustre which is easily lost, but which never returns.
275.—Natural goodness, which boasts of being so apparent, is often smothered by the least interest.
276.—Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.
277.—Women often think they love when they do not love. The business of a love affair, the emotion of mind that sentiment induces, the natural bias towards the pleasure of being loved, the difficulty of refusing, persuades them that they have real passion when they have but flirtation.
["And if in fact she takes a {"}Grande Passion{"}, It is a very serious thing indeed: Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion, Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash on. Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the {Tenth} instance will be a tornado, For there's no saying what they will or may do." {—Lord Byron, }Don Juan, canto xii. stanza 77.]
278.—What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honour of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.
279.—When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit.
280.—The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.