.

He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It's your cool, dissembling, smiling hypocrite, of whom you should beware. There is no deceit about a bull dog. It's only the cur that sneaks up and bites you when your back's turned. Again, we say, beware of a man who has psalmody in his looks.

If a person is bent on quarrelling with you, leave the whole of it to himself, and he will soon become weary of his unencouraged occupation. Even the most malicious ram will soon cease to butt against a disregarding object, and will usually find his own head more injured than the object of his blind animosity. So let them kick.

An easy flow of words is no sign of an abundance of ideas. Swift made a wise comparison when he likened a well stored mind to a crowded church, where the people elbow each other, and cannot get out.

"If a civil word or two will render a man happy," said a French king, "he must be a wretch indeed who will not give them to him. Such a disposition is like lighting another man's candle by one's own, which loses none of its brilliancy by what the other gains."