300 JEROME CARDAN. 



and at another time by the impure condition of his blood. 

 But it is just to balance these considerations of his weak- 

 ness with a few more suggestions of his strength. By the 

 help of a few aphorisms taken from his works, this can 

 be done very briefly. The first two of the following 

 ideas I quote, not for their truth they wrong humanity 

 but because they are at once clever and characteristic of 

 the morbid feelings out of which they sprung; the rest 

 are wisely thought as well as shrewdly uttered : 



" To a man saying, * I pity you,' I replied, * You have 

 no right to do so.' 



I told a youth whom I was warning against evil com- 

 pany, ' I can show you many an apple that has become 

 rotten through lying with others in a heap, but I can 

 show you no heap that has made a rotten apple sound 

 again.' 



I said to a servant from whom I parted, ' You please 

 me, but I don't please you; therefore I am obliged to leave 

 you.' 



Better omit a hundred things that should be said, than 

 say one thing that ought to be omitted. 



If you were without money, children, friends, and had 

 the other gifts of life, you could be happy. Wanting 

 those, and these also, there would remain to you few 

 days for sorrow. 



The vulgar admire knowledge that comes of expcri- 



