transact
business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their
friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the
honour of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.

279.--When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is
often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit.

280.--The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the
envy we bear to those who are established.

281.--Pride, which inspires, often serves to moderate envy.

282.--Some disguised lies so resemble truth, that we should judge badly
were we not deceived.

283.--Sometimes there is not less ability in knowing how to use than in
giving good advice.

284.--There are wicked people who would be much less dangerous if they
were wholly without goodness.

285.--Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one
can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving
praise.

286.--It is impossible to love a second time those whom we have really
ceased to love.

287.--Fertility of mind does not furnish us with so many resources on
the same matter, as the lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each
thing our imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning
which is the best.

288.--There are matters and maladies which at certain times remedies
only serve to make worse; true skill consists in knowing when it is
dangerous to use them.

289.--Affected simplicity is refined imposture.

[Domitianus simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine studium litterarum et
amorem carminum simulabat quo velaret animum et fratris aemulationi
subduceretur.--Tacitus, Ann. iv.]

290.--There are as many errors of temper as of mind.

291.--Man's merit, like the crops, has its season.

292.--One may say of temper as of many buildings; it has divers aspects,
some agreeable, others disagreeable.

293.--Moderation cannot claim the merit of opposing and overcoming
Ambition: they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and
sloth of the soul, Ambition its activity and heat.

294.--We always like those who admire us, we do not always like those
whom we admire.

295.--It is well that we know not all our wishes.

296.--It is difficult to love those we do not esteem, but it is no less
so to love those whom we esteem much more than ourselves.

297.--Bodily temperaments have a common course