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 candour and modesty of his behaviour, and by a generous
indifference to external advantages. Let him love mankind, and
resign to Providence, and then his works will follow him, and his
good actions will praise him in the gate.
21. When you hear a discourse, let your understanding, as far as
possible, keep pace with it, and lead you forward to those things
which fall most within the compass of your own observations.
22. When vice and treachery shall be rewarded, and virtue and
ability slighted and discountenanced; when ministers of state shall
rather fear man than God, and to screen themselves run into parties
and factions; when noise and clamour, and scandalous reports shall
carry everything before them, it is natural to conclude that a
nation in such a state of infatuation stands upon the brink of
destruction, and without the intervention of some unforeseen
accident, must be inevitably ruined.
23. When a prince is guarded by wise and honest men, and when all
public officers are sure to be rewarded if they do well, and
punished if they do evil, the consequence is plain; justice and
honesty will flourish, and men will be always contriving, not for
themselves, but for the honour and interest of their king and
country.
24. Wicked men may sometimes go unpunished in this world, but
wicked nations never do; because this world is the only place of
punishment of wicked nations, though not for private and particular
persons.
25. An administration that is merely founded upon human policy
must be always subject to human chance; but that which is founded
on the divine wisdom can no more miscarry than the government of
heaven. To govern by parties and factions is the advice of an
atheist, and sets up a government by the spirit of Satan. In such
a government the prince can never be secure under the greatest