and rule which
imperceptibly affect our will. They advance in combination, and
successively exercise a secret empire over us, so that, without our
perceiving it, they become a great part of all our actions.

298.--The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving
greater benefits.

[Hence the common proverb "Gratitude is merely a lively sense of favors
to come."]

299.--Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many
people show gratitude for trifling, but there is hardly one who does not
show ingratitude for great favours.

300.--There are follies as catching as infections.

301.--Many people despise, but few know how to bestow wealth.

302.--Only in things of small value we usually are bold enough not to
trust to appearances.

303.--Whatever good quality may be imputed to us, we ourselves find
nothing new in it.

304.--We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we
bore.

305.--Interest which is accused of all our misdeeds often should be
praised for our good deeds.

306.--We find very few ungrateful people when we are able to confer
favours.

307.--It is as proper to be boastful alone as it is ridiculous to be so
in company.

308.--Moderation is made a virtue to limit the ambition of the great;
to console ordinary people for their small fortune and equally small
ability.

309.--There are persons fated to be fools, who commit follies not only
by choice, but who are forced by fortune to do so.

310.--Sometimes there are accidents in our life the skilful extrication
from which demands a little folly.

311.--If there be men whose folly has never appeared, it is because it
has never been closely looked for.

312.--Lovers are never tired of each other,--they always speak of
themselves.

313.--How is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least
triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how
often we have told it to the same person?

["Old men who yet retain the memory of things past, and forget how often
they have told them, are most tedious companions."--Montaigne, {Essays,
Book I, Chapter IX}.]

314.--The extreme delight we take in talking of ourselves should warn us
that it is not shared by those who listen.

315.--What commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart
to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of
ourselves.

316.--Weak