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A WISE man will defire no more than what he may get justly, ufe foberly, diftribute cheerfully, and live upon contentedly.

A CONTENTED mind, and a good confcience, will make a man happy in all conditions. He knows not how to fear, who dares to die.

THERE is but one way of fortifying the foul against all gloomy prefages and terrors of mind; and that is, by fecuring to ourselves the friendship and protection of that Being who difpofes of events, and governs futurity.

PHILOSOPHY is then only valuable, when it ferves for the law of life, and not for the oftentation of fcience.

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ITHOUT a friend the world is but a wilderness.

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WITH

A MAN may have a thousand intimate acquaintances, and not a friend among them all. If you have one friend, think yourself happy.

WHEN Once you profefs yourself a friend endeavour to be always fuch. He can never have any true friends, that will be often changing them.

PROSPERITY gains friends, and adverfity tries them. NOTHING more engages the affections of men,

handsome address, and graceful conversation.

than a

COMPLAISANCE renders a fuperior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable.

EXCESS of ceremony fhews want of breeding. That civility is beft, which excludes all fuperfluous formality.

INGRATITUDE is a crime fo fhameful, that the man was never yet found, who would acknowledge himfelf guilty of it.

TRUTH

TRUTH is born with us; and we must do violence to nature, to shake off our veracity.

THERE cannot be a greater treachery, than first to raise a confidence, and then deceive it.

By others' faults, wife men correct their own.

No man hath a thorough taste of profperity, to whom adverfity never happened.

WHEN our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves that we leave them.

Ir is as great a point of wisdom to hide ignorance, as to discover knowledge.

PITCH upon that courfe of life which is the most excellent; and habit will render it the most delightful.

C

CHA P. III.

USTOM is the plague of wife men, and the idol of fools,

As to be perfectly juft, is an attribute of the divine nature; to be fo to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.

No man was ever cast down with the injuries of fortune, unless he had before fuffered himself to be deceived by her favours:

ANGER may glance into the breast of a wife man, but refts only in the bofom of fools.

None more impatiently fuffer injuries, than those that are moft forward in doing them.

By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in paffing it over, he is fuperior.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

A MORE glorious victory cannot be gained over another

man, than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness fhould begin on ours.

THE prodigal robs his heir, the mifer robs himself.

WE should take a prudent care for the future, but fo as to enjoy the prefent. It is no part of wisdom, to be miferable to-day, because we may happen to be fo to-morrow.

To mourn without measure is folly; not to mourn at all, infenfibility.

SOME would be thought to do great things, who are but tools and inftruments; like the fool who fancied he played upon the organ, when he only drew the bellows.

THOUGH a man may become learned by another's learning, he never can be wife but by his own wisdom.

He who wants good sense is unhappy in having learning; for he has thereby more ways of expofing himself.

It is ungenerous to give a man occafion to blush at his own ignorance in one thing, who perhaps may excel us in.

many.

No object is more pleasing to the eye, than the fight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any mufic so agreeable to the ear, as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor.

THE coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is, that by hearing what we are not, we may be inftructed what we ought to be.

The wife

THE character of the perfon who commends you, is to be confidered before you fet a value on his esteem. man applauds him whom he thinks moft virtuous, the reft of the world him who is most wealthy.

THE temperate man's pleafures are durable, because they are regular; and all his life is calm and ferene, because it is innocent.

A GOOD

A GOOD man will love himself too well to lofe, and his neighbour too well to win, an eftate by gaming. The love of gaming will corrupt the best principles in the world.

A

CHA P. IV.

N angry man who fuppreffes his paffions, thinks worfe than he speaks; and an angry man that will chide, fpeaks worse than he thinks.

A GOOD word is an eafy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our filence, which cofts us nothing.

IT is to affectation the world owes its whole race of cox-combs. Nature in her whole drama never drew fuch a part; she has fometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of his own making.

It is the infirmity of little minds to be taken with every appearance, and dazzled with every thing that sparkles; but great minds have but little admiration, because few things appear new to them.

It happens to men of learning, as to ears of corn; they fhoot up, and raife their heads high, while they are empty; but when full, and fwelled with grain, they begin to flag and droop.

He that is truly polite, knows how to contradict with respect, and to please without adulation; and is equally remote from an infipid complaifance, and a low familiarity.

THE failings of good men are commonly more published in the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a deserving man, shall meet with more reproaches, than all his virtues, praise: fuch is the force of ill will, and ill nature. Ir is harder to avoid cenfure, than to gain applaufe; for this may be done by one great or wife action in an age; but

to

to efcape cenfure, a man muft pafs his whole life without. faying or doing one ill or foolish thing.

WHEN Darius offered Alexander ten thousand talents to divide Afia equally with him, he answered, the earth cannot bear two funs, nor Afia two kings. Parmenio, a friend of Alexander's, hearing the great offers Darius had made, faid, were I Alexander I would accept them. So would I, replied Alexander, were I Parmenio.

NOBILITY is to be confidered only as an imaginary dif tinction, unless accompanied with the practice of thofe generous virtues by which it ought to be obtained. Titles of hənour conferred upon fuch as have no personal merit, are at beft but the royal ftamp fet upon bafe metal.

THOUGH an honourable title may be conveyed to pofterity, yet the ennobling qualities which are the foul of greatnefs are a fort of incommunicable perfections, and cannot be transferred. If a man could bequeath his virtues by will, and fettle his fenfe and learning upon his heirs, as certainly as he can his lands, a noble descent would then indeed be a valuable privilege.

TRUTH is always confiftent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and fits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware: whereas a lie is troublesome, and fets' a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.

THE pleasure which affects the human mind with the most lively and tranfporting touches, is the fenfe that we act in the eye of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, that will crown our virtuous endeavours here with a happiness hereafter, large as our defires, and lasting as our immortal fouls; without this the higheft ftate of life is infipid, and with it the loweft is a paradise.

CHA. P..

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