To Look Back To Antiquity Is One

When We Live Habitually With The Wicked, We Become Necessarily Either Their Victim Or Their Disciple; When We Associate, On The Contrary, With Virtuous Men, We Form Ourselves In Imitation Of Their Virtues, Or, At Least, Lose Every Day Something Of Our Faults.

When All Moves Equally (says Pascal), Nothing Seems To Move As In A Vessel Under Sail; And When All Run By Common Consent Into Vice, None Appear To Do So. He That Stops First, Views As From A Fixed Point The Horrible Extravagance That Transports The Rest.

He That Dies A Martyr Proves That He Was Not A Knave, But By No Means That He Was Not A Fool; Since The Most Absurd Doctrines Are Not Without Such Evidence As Martyrdom Can Produce. A Martyr, Therefore, By The Mere Act Of Suffering, Can Prove Nothing But His Own Faith.

Immitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.

As The Gout Seems Privileged To Attack The Bodies Of The Wealthy, So Ennui Seems To Exert A Similar Prerogative Over Their Minds.