soon as good works cease and their merit is denied,
sentimentality takes their place.

206

If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply
it himself.

207

The use of mottoes is to indicate something we have not attained, but
strive to attain. It is right to keep them always before our eyes.

208

'If a man cannot lift a stone himself, let him leave it, even though he
has some one to help him.'

209

Despotism promotes general self-government, because from top to bottom
it makes the individual responsible, and so produces the highest degree
of activity.

210

A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and
even then he is lucky.

211

Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away
by it.

212

School itself is the only true preparation for it.

213

Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on
awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.

214

Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others
to have them share in his joy.

215

Men's prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot
be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence
nor common-sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.

216

Characters often make a law of their failings. Men who know the world
have said that when prudence is only fear in disguise, its scruples
cannot be conquered. The weak often have revolutionary sentiments; they
think they would be well off if they were not ruled, and fail to
perceive that they can rule neither themselves nor others.

217

Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is
revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary
and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with
confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when
they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure.

218

All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong
do too much, and the weak too little.

219

The conflict of the old, the existing, the continuing, with development,
improvement, and reform, is always the same. Order of every kind turns
at last to pedantry, and to get rid of the one, people destroy the
other; and so it goes on for a while, until people perceive that order
must be established anew. Classicism