16
MAXIMS AND
39
We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.
40.
Interest speaks all sorts of languages, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
41.
Interest, which blinds some, opens the eyes of others.
42[1]
Those who bestow too much. application on
- ↑ 42. "Frivolous curiosity about trifles, and laborious attention to little objects which neither require nor deserve a moment's thought, lower a man, who from thence is thought (and not unjustly) incapable of greater matters. Cardinal de Retz very sagaciously marked out Cardinal Chigi for a little mind, from the moment he told him that he had wrote three years with the same pen, and that it was an excellent good one still."—Lord Chesterfield.
"Never get a reputation for a small perfection, if you are trying for fame in a loftier area; the world can only, judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiae, seldom have their minds occupied . with great things. There are, it is true, exceptions; but to exceptions the world does not attend."—Bulwer Lytton.
