There is a wide-spread belief that the art of pleasing is a valuable means of making one’s fortune. But to know how to be bored is an art which gives far better results; indeed talent for making a fortune like that for succeeding with women, can almost be reduced to that art.
The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
A philosopher who had retired from the world wrote me a letter full of good advice and common sense. It concluded with these words: “Farewell, my friend; maintain if you can the interests that bind you to society, but cultivate the feelings that cut you away from it.”
Such is the miserable condition of men, that they must needs seek consolation in society for the evils of nature, and in nature for the evils of society. How many have failed to find either in one or the other distraction from their troubles!
M. —— was reproached for his love of solitude. “You see,” he said, “I am more accustomed to my own failings than to those of other people.”