received; for men delight more to be presented with those things they
want than such as they have no need nor use of. And though they condemn
the realities of those honours and renowns that are falsely imputed to
them, they are wonderfully affected with their false pretences; for
dreams work more upon men's passions than any waking thoughts of the
same kind, and many, out of an ignorant superstition, give more credit
to them than the most rational of all their vigilant conjectures, how
false soever they prove in the event. No wonder, then, if those who
apply to men's fancies and humours have a stronger influence upon them
than those that seek to prevail upon their reason and understandings,
especially in things so delightful to them as their own praises, no
matter how false and apparently incredible; for great persons may wear
counterfeit jewels of any carat with more confidence and security from
being discovered than those of meaner quality, in whose hands the
greatness of their value (if they were true) is more apt to render them
suspected. A flatterer is like Mahomet's pigeon, that picks his food out
of his master's ear, who is willing to have it believed that he whispers
oracles into it, and accordingly sets a high esteem upon the service he
does him, though the impostor only designs his own utilities; for men
are for the most part better pleased with other men's opinions, though
false, of their happiness than their own experiences, and find more
pleasure in the dullest flattery of others than all the vast
imaginations they can have of themselves, as no man is apt to be tickled
with his own fingers; because the applauses of others are more agreeable
to those high conceits they have of themselves, which they are glad to
find confirmed, and are the only music that sets them a-dancing, like
those that are bitten with a tarantula.

He accounts it an argument of great discretion, and as great temper, to
take no notice of affronts and indignities put upon him by great
persons; for he that is insensible of injuries of this nature can
receive none, and if he lose no confidence by them, can lose nothing
else; for it is greater to be above injuries than either to do or
revenge them, and he that will be deterred by those discouragements from
prosecuting his designs will never obtain what he proposes to himself.
When a man is once known to be able to endure insolences easier than
others can impose them, they will raise the siege