and contempt.

12. If any one convinces you of an error, change your opinion and thank
him for it: truth and information are your business, and can never hurt
anybody. On the contrary, he that is proud and stubborn, and wilfully
continues in a mistake, it is he that receives the mischief.

13. Because you see a thing difficult, do not instantly conclude it to
be impossible to master it. Diligence and industry are seldom defeated.
Look, therefore, narrowly into the thing itself, and what you observe
proper and practicable in another, conclude likewise within your own
power.

14. The principal business of human life is run through within the short
compass of twenty-four hours; and when you have taken a deliberate view
of the present age, you have seen as much as if you had begun with the
world, the rest being nothing else but an endless round of the same thing
over and over again.

15. Bring your will to your fate, and suit your mind to your
circumstances. Love your friends and forgive your enemies, and do
justice to all mankind, and you will be secure to make your passage easy,
and enjoy most of the comforts human life is capable to afford you.

16. When you have a mind to entertain yourself in your retirements, let
it be with the good qualifications of your friends and acquaintance.
Think with pleasure and satisfaction upon the honour and bravery of one,
the modesty of another, the generosity of a third, and so on; there being
nothing more pleasant and diverting than the lively images and the
advantages of those we love and converse with.

17. As nothing can deprive you of the privileges of your nature, or
compel you to act counter to your reason, so nothing can happen to you
but what comes from Providence, and consists with the interest of the
universe.

18. Let people's tongues and actions be what they will, your business is
to have honour and honesty in your view. Let them rail, revile, censure,
and condemn, or make you the subject of their scorn and ridicule, what
does it all signify? You have one certain remedy against all their
malice and folly, and that is, to live so that nobody shall believe them.

19. Alas, poor mortals! did we rightly consider our own state and
condition, we should find it would not be long before we have forgot all
the world, and to be even, that all the world will have forgot us
likewise.

20. He that would recommend himself to the public, let him do it by the
cand