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CHAP. II.

WITHOUT a friend the world is but a wilderness.

A man may have a thousand intimate acquaintances, and not a friend amongst them all. If you have one friend, think yourfelf happy.

When once you profess yourself a friend, endeavor to be always fuch. He can never have any true friends who is al ways changing them.

Profperity gains friends, and adverfity tries them.

Nothing more engages the affections of men, than a handfome addrefs and graceful converfation.

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

Excefs of ceremony fhows rant 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 himself guilty of it. Few things are impoffible to induftry and fill.

Diligence is never wholly loft.

There cannot be a greater trechery, than first to a raise a confidence, and then deceive it.

By others faults, wife men correct their own.

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

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

It is as great a point of wisdom to hide ignorance, as to dif cover knowledge.

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

CHAP. III.

CUSTOM 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 caft down with the injuries of fortune, unlefs he had before fuffered himself to be deceived by her favors. Anger may glance into the breaft of a wife man, but rests only in the bofom of fools.

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

By revenging an injury, 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 wifdom to be miferable to day, because we may happen to be more 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 blew 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 fenfe is unhappy in having learning; 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 pleafing to the eye, than the fight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any mufic fo agreeable to the ear, as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor.

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

The character of the perfon who commends you, is to be confidered before you fet a value on his esteem. The wife man applauds him whom he thinks most virtuous, the rest 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 man will love himself too well to life, and his neighbor too well to win, an eftate by gaming. The love of gaming will corrupt the beft principles in the world.

CHAP. IV.

AN angry man who suppresses his paffions, thinks worse than he fpeaks; and an angry man that will chide, speaks worse than he thinks.

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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 coxcombs. 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 fparkles; 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 raise 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 refpect, and to please without adulation; and is equally remote from an infipid complafance, and a low familiarity,

The failings of good men are commonly more publifhed in the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a deferving man will meet with more reproaches, than all his virtues, praise: Such is the force of ill-will, and ill-nature.

It is harder to avoid cenfure, than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wife action in an age; but, to efcape cenfure, a man muft pafs his whole life without faying or doing one ill or foolish thing.

When Darius offered Alexander ten thoufand talents to divide Afia equally with him, he anfwered: The earth cannot bear two Suns, nor Afia two Kings. Parmenio, a friend of Alexander's, hearing the great offers that Darius had made, faid, Were I Alexander, I would accept them. So would I, replied Alexander, were I Permenio.

An old age unfupported with matter for difcourfe and meditation, is much to be dreaded. No ftate can be more deftitute than that of him, who, when the delights of sense forfake him, has no pleasures of the mind.

Such is the condition of life, that fomething is always wanted to happiness. In youth, we have warm hopes, which are foon blafted by rafhnefs and negligence; and great defigns, which are defeated by experience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence, without fpirit to exert, or motives to prompt them. We are able to plan schemes and regulate mes res, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion,

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 troublefome, and fets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good,

The pleafure which affects the human mind with the most lively and tranfporting touches, is the fenfe that we act in the eye of infinite wifdom, power and goodness, that will crown our virtuous endeavors here, and happiness hereafter, large as our defires, and lafting as our immortal fouls; without this the highest state of life is infipid, and with it, the loweft is a paradife.

CHAP. V.

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HONORABLE age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor which is measured by number of years; but wisdom is the gray hair unto man, and an unfpotted life is old age.

Wickednefs, condemned by her own witness, is very timoorous, and being preffed with confcience, always forecasteth evil things; for fear is nothing elfe, but a betraying of the fuccors which reafon offereth.

A rich man, beginning to fall, is held up by his friends; but a poor man, being down, is thruft away by his friends. When a rich man is fallen, he hath many helpers; he fpeaketh things not to be spoken, and yet men juftify him; the poor man flipt, and they rebuked him; he fpoke wifely and could have no place. When a rich man fpeaketh, every man holdeth his tongue, and lo! what he faith they extol to the clouds ; but if a poor man fpeaks, they fay, What fellow is this?

Many have fallen by the edge of the fword, but not fo many as have fallen by the tongue. Well is he that is defended from it, and hath paffed through the venom thereof; who hath not drawn the yoke thereof, nor been bound to her bonds; for the yoke thereof is a yoke of iron, and the bands thereof are bands of brafs; the death thereof is an evil death.

My fon, blemish not thy good deeds, neither ufe uncom fortable words when thou giveft any thing. Shall not the dew affuage the So is a word better than a gift. Lo, is not

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If thou wouldeft get a friend, prove him first, and be not hafty to credit him; for fome men are friends for their own occafions, and will not abide in the day of trouble.

Forfake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him; a new friend is as new wine; when it is old thou fhalt drink it with pleasure.

A friend cannot be known in profperity; and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity.

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Admonish thy friend; it may be he hath not done it; and if he hath, that he fhould do it no more. Admonish thy friend; it may be he hath not faid it; or if he hath, that he fhould fpeak it not again. Admonish a friend; for many times it is a flander; and believe not every tale. There is one that flippeth in his fpeech, but not from his heart; and who is he that hath not offended with his tongue?

Whofo discovereth fecrets, lofeth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind.

Honor thy father with thy whole heart, and forget not the forrows of thy mother. How canft thou recompenfe them the things which they have done for thee?

There is nothing of fo much worth as a mind well inftructed.

The lips of talkers will be telling fuch things as pertain not unto them; but the words of fuch as have understanding are weighed in the balance. The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the tongue of the wife is in their heart.

To labor, and to be contented with what a man hath, is a fweet life.

Be not confident even in a plain way,

Be in peace with many; nevertheless, have but one counfellor of a thousand.

Let reafon go before every enterprife, and counfel, before every action.

CHAP. VI.

THE latter part of a wife man's life is taken up in curing

the follies, prejudices, and falfe opinions he had contracted in the former.

Cenfure is a tax a man pays to the public for being eminent, Very few men, properly speaking, live at prefent, but are providing to live another time.

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