137
It is much easier to recognise error than to find truth; for error lies
on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to
search for it is not given to every one.
138
We all live on the 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