past, and through the past are destroyed.

139

We are no sooner about to learn some great lesson than we take refuge in
our own innate poverty of soul, and yet for all that the lesson has not
been quite in vain.

140

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing
but ill-will and envy.

141

Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of
every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims
in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

142

Confidences are strange things. If you listen only to one man, it is
possible that he is deceived or mistaken; if you listen to many, they
are in a like case; and, generally, you cannot get at the truth at all.

143

No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by
chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how
much determination he is capable.

144

An honourable man with limited ideas often sees through the rascality of
the most cunning jobber.

145

If a man feels no love, he must learn how to flatter; otherwise he will
not succeed.

146

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must
act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him.

147

The masses cannot dispense with men of ability, and such men are always
a burden to them.

148

If a man spreads my failings abroad, he is my master, even though he
were my servant.

149

Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of
masters, the processes always meet.

150

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them
well.

151

I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial.

152

Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of
ability to be ungrateful.

153

We are all so limited that we always think we are right; and so we may
conceive of an extraordinary mind which not only errs but has a positive
delight in error.

154

It is very rare to find pure and steady activity in the accomplishment
of what is good and right. We usually see pedantry trying to keep back,
and audacity trying to go on too fast.

155

Word and picture are correlatives which are continually in quest of each
other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes.
So from all time what was said or sung inwardly to the ear had to be
presented equally to the eye.