(64.) Life is short, if we are only said to live when we enjoy ourselves; and if we were merely to count up the hours we spent agreeably, a great number of years would hardly make up a life of a few months.
(65.) How difficult is it to be pleased with any one!
(66.) We imagine that it would be impossible to prevent our feeling some pleasure if we were present at the death of a wicked man, for then we could reap the harvest of our hatred, and get from him all that we could ever hope to get from him, namely, the delight his death causes us. But when at last this man really dies, and at a time when our interest will not permit us to rejoice, he dies either too soon or too late for us.
(67.) It is difficult for a proud man ever to forgive a person who has found him at fault, and who has good grounds for complaining of him; his pride is not assuaged till he has regained the advantages he lost and put the other person in the wrong.
(68.) As our affection increases towards those whom we wish to assist, so we violently hate those whom we have greatly offended.
(69.) It is as difficult at first to stifle the resentment of a wrong done to us as to retain it after many years.
(70.) It is weakness which makes us hate an enemy and seek revenge, and it is idleness that pacifies us and causes us to neglect it.
(71.) It is as much from idleness as from weakness that we allow ourselves to be controlled.
No man should think of controlling another person all at once, and without some preliminaries, in some important matter of business which might be of great consequence to him and to his family; such a person would at once become aware of the sway and ascendency intended to be obtained over him, and would throw off the yoke out of shame or inconsistency. He should be tried first with trifling things, and then success is certain when attempting greater ones. Some people, who, at first, scarcely ventured to make a man leave for the country or to let him return to town, obtained such an influence over him at last, that he made his will, as they told him, and only left his own son what he was obliged to leave him.[197]