A show of a certain amount of honesty is in any profession or business the surest way of growing rich.
(45.) The shortest and best way of making your fortune is to let people clearly see that it is their interest to promote yours.
(46.) Some men,[294] stimulated by the necessities of life, and sometimes by a desire to gain money or glory, improve their secular talents or adopt a profession far from reputable, and overlook its danger and consequences for a considerable time; they leave it afterwards from secret and devout reasons, which never stirred them before they had reaped their harvest and enjoyed a comfortable income.
(47.) There exist miseries in this world which wring the very heart; some people want even food; they dread the winter and are afraid to live; others eat hothouse fruits; the earth and the seasons are compelled to furnish forth delicacies; and mere citizens, simply because they have grown rich, dare to swallow in one morsel what would nourish a hundred families. Whatever may be brought forward against such extremes, let me be neither unhappy or happy if I can help it; I take refuge in mediocrity.
(48.) It is well known that the poor are sad because they want everything and nobody comforts them; but if it be true that the rich are irascible, it is because they may want the smallest thing, or that some one might oppose them.
(49.) A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.
There are some men[295] who with an annual revenue of two millions are yearly still five hundred thousand livres in arrears.
Nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a large one.
Great riches are a temptation for poverty.
If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.[296]