CCC. We should be inclined to pay more attention to the wisdom of the old, if they shewed greater indulgence to the follies of the young.
CCCI. The best lesson we can learn from witnessing the folly of mankind is not to irritate ourselves against it.
CCCII. If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.
CCCIII. In judging of individuals, we always allow something to character; for even when this is not agreeable or praiseworthy, it affords exercise for our sagacity, and baffles the harshness of our censure.
CCCIV. There are persons to whom we never think of applying the ordinary rules of judging. They form a class by themselves and are curiosities in morals, like nondescripts in natural history. We forgive whatever they do or say, for the singularity of the thing, and because it excites attention. A man who has been hanged, is not the worse subject for dissection; and a man who deserves to be hanged, may be a very amusing companion or topic of discourse.
CCCV. Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.
CCCVI. No man ever owned to the title of a murderer, a tyrant, &c. because, however notorious the facts might be, the epithet is accompanied with a reference to motives and marks of opprobrium in common language and in the feelings of others, which he does not acknowledge in his own mind.
CCCVII. There are some things, the idea of which alone is a clear gain to the human mind. Let people rail at virtue, at genius and friendship as long as they will—the very names of these disputed qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most angry abuse of them.
CCCVIII. If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world.
CCCIX. Were good and evil ever so nearly balanced in reality, yet imagination would add a casting-weight to the favourable scale, by anticipating the bright side of what is to come, and throwing a pleasing melancholy on the past.