MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 43 



Expose not too great a surface to annoyance, for 

 if you make many blots, the more certain you are of 

 being hit. 



Anticipate by your hopes the future consolation, 

 which time infallibly brings to every mortification 

 and affliction. Custom deadens the poignancy both 

 of good and evil. 



Avoid all preternatural excitement, whether caused 

 by religion, politics, or brandy, for in proportion as 

 the imagination is excited, the understanding is 

 weakened. 



Avoid solitude and meditating on your own per- 

 fections, for they are great promoters of self import- 

 ance. 



In the greatest good some evil; in the greatest 

 evil some good. 



In argument suppose yourself always wrong, which 

 in nine cases out of ten is probably no more than the 

 truth. 



Do not expect the whole of what you aim at ; com- 

 promise is one of the most important elements of 

 human intercourse. 



Carefully avoid the perpetual irritation of embar- 

 rassed circumstances. 



Every man may grow rich by contracting his 

 wishes, and by quiet acquiescence in what has been 

 given him, supply the place of more. Why fatigue 

 destiny with complaints? 



Education. 



Liberal education and moral instruction are impru- 

 dently confounded, for their difference is very great. 

 By the indiscriminate encouragement of literature, a 

 great multitude must be inevitably exposed to disap- 

 pointment for one that is benefited.* 



* Knowledge is power, but it decidedly is not happiness. A 

 modern Esculapius, steaming up from the north in the Sir Walter 



