effectively quiet satire in these few words!--

No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of others.

This man had seen the end of all perfection in the apparently great of
this world. He could not bear that such should flaunt a false plume
before their fellows:--

No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of locking up
their uneasiness in their hearts.

Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line to do so, he might,
with as much apparent truth, have pointed out, that to lock up
uneasiness in the heart requires steadfastness no less--nay, more--than
not to feel uneasiness.

The inflation of "philosophy" vaunting itself is thus softly eased of
its painful distention:--

No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles passed and
troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over it.

When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of James and John for
blaming those brethren as self-seekers, he acted on the same profound
principle with that disclosed in the following maxim:--

No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of that of
others.

How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to elude the presence
of mind, the inexorable eye, the fast hand, of this incredulous
Frenchman:--

No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, and
plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.

No. 49. We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we imagine.

No. 78. The love of justice is, in most men, only the fear of
suffering injustice.

What a subtly unsoldering distrust the following maxim introduces into
the sentiment of mutual friendship!--

No. 83. What men have called friendship, is only a partnership, a
mutual accommodation of interests, and an exchange of good offices:
it is, in short, only a traffic, in which self-love always proposes
to gain something.

No. 89. Every one complains of his memory, and no one complains of
his judgment.

How striking, from its artful suppression of strikingness, is the first
following, and what a wide, easy sweep of well-bred satire it
contains!--

No. 93. Old men like to give good advice, to console themselves for
being no longer able to give bad examples.

No. 119. We are so much accustomed to disguise ourselves to others,
that, at last, we disguise ourselves to ourselves.

No. 127. The true way to be