453.—In great matters we should not try so much to create opportunities as to utilise those that offer themselves.
[Yet Lord Bacon says "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."—Essays, {(1625), "Of Ceremonies and Respects"}]
454.—There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us.
455.—However disposed the world may be to judge wrongly, it far oftener favours false merit than does justice to true.
456.—Sometimes we meet a fool with wit, never one with discretion.
457.—We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.
458.—Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.
459.—There are many remedies to cure love, yet none are infallible.
460.—It would be well for us if we knew all our passions make us do.
461.—Age is a tyrant who forbids at the penalty of life all the pleasures of youth.