It is often madness to engage in a conspiracy; but nothing is so
effectual to bring people afterward to their senses, at least for a
time. As in such undertakings, the danger subsists, even after the
business is over; this obliges to be prudent and circumspect in the
succeeding moments.
2. A middling understanding, being susceptible of unjust suspicions, is
consequently, of all characters, the least fit to head a faction; as
the most indispensable qualification in such a chief is to suppress,
in many occasions, and to conceal in all, even the best grounded
suspicions.
3. Nothing animates and gives strength to a commotion so much as the
ridicule of him against whom it is raised.
4. Among people used to affairs of moment, secrecy is much less
uncommon than is generally believed.
5. Descending to the little is the surest way of attaining to an
equality with the great.
6. Fashion, though powerful in all things, is not more so in any, than
in being well or ill at court. There are times when disgrace is a kind
of fire, that purifies all bad qualities, and illuminates every good
one. There are others, in which the being out of favor is unbecoming a
man of character.