CCCCIX. The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.
CCCCX. Those people who are fond of giving trouble like to take it; just as those who pay no attention to the comforts of others, are generally indifferent to their own. We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility.
CCCCXI. No one is idle, who can do anything.
CCCCXII. Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement: it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.
CCCCXIII. Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
CCCCXIV. Praise is no match for blame and obloquy. For, were the scales even, the malice of mankind would throw in the casting-weight.
CCCCXV. The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest shew of magnanimity, and the least of it in reality. We are not jealous of dormant merit, which nobody recognises but ourselves, and which in proportion as it developes itself, demonstrates our sagacity. If our prediction fails, it is forgotten; and if it proves true, we may then set up for prophets.
CCCCXVI. Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it, because they excel.
CCCCXVII. Vice is man’s nature: virtue is a habit—or a mask.
CCCCXVIII. The foregoing maxim shews the difference between truth and sarcasm.