Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 836

As for the calamities of hunger and thirst, inward ulcers, scorching fevers, tormenting fits of the stone, I look upon these miseries to be at least as grievous as any of the rest; only they do not so much affect the fancy, because they lie out of sight.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 161

It is a court-humor to keep people upon the tenters; their injuries are quick and sudden, but their benefits are slow. Great ministers love to rack men with attendance, and account it an ostentation of their power to hold their suitors in hand, and to have many witnesses of their interest. A benefit should be made acceptable by all possible means, even to the end that the receiver, who is never to forget it, may bear it in his mind with satisfaction.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 593

It is not to say, in case of admonition, I knew this before, for we know many things, but we do not think of them; so that it is the part of a _monitor_, not so much to _teach_ as to _mind_ us of our duties. Sometimes a man oversees that which lies just under his nose; otherwhile he is careless, or _pretends_ not to see it: we do all know that friendship is sacred, and yet we violate it; and the greatest libertine expects that his own wife should be honest.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 528

He that is wise will take delight even in an ill opinion that is well gotten; it is ostentation, not virtue, when a man will have his good deeds published; and it is not enough to be just where there is honor to be gotten, but to continue so, in defiance of infamy and danger.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 672

We are apt to murmur at many things as great evils, that have nothing at all of evil in them besides the complaint, which we should more reasonably take up against ourselves. If I be sick, it is part of my fate; and for other calamities, they are usual things; they ought to be; nay, which is more, they must be, for they come by divine appointment. So that we should not only submit to God, but assent to him, and obey him out of _duty_, even if there were no _necessity_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 204

No matter for the inequality of the things given and received, so long as, in point of good affection, the two parties stand upon the same level. It is no shame not to overtake a man, if we follow him as fast as we can. That tumor of a man, the vain-glorious Alexander, was used to make his boast, that never any man went beyond him in benefits; and yet he lived to see a poor fellow in a tub, to whom there was nothing that he could give, and from whom there was nothing that he could take away.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 831

This humor is a kind of voluntary disease, and an industrious contrivance of our own unhappiness, to complain of an affliction that we do not feel. Some are not only moved with grief itself, but with the mere opinion of it; as children will start at a shadow, or at the sight of a deformed person.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 992

Let us therefore live as if every moment were to be our last, and set our accounts right every day that passes over our heads. We are not ready for death, and therefore we fear it, because we do not know what will become of us when we are gone, and that consideration strikes us with an inexplicable terror.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 508

We may seem, perhaps, to promise more than human nature is able to perform; but we speak with a respect to the mind, and not to the body.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 529

But virtue cannot lie hid, for the time will come that shall raise it again (even after it is buried) and deliver it from the malignity of the age that oppressed it: immortal glory is the shadow of it, and keeps it company whether we will or not; but sometimes the shadow goes before the substance, and other whiles it follows it; and the later it comes, the larger it is, when even envy itself shall have given way to it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 308

Should Philip now have kept this promise? First, he owed the soldier nothing. Secondly, it would have been injurious and impious; and, lastly, a precedent of dangerous consequence to human society; for it would have been little less than an interdiction of fire and water to the miserable, to have inflicted such a penalty upon relieving them; so that there must be always some tacit exception or reserve: _if I can_, _if I may_; or, _if matters continue as they were_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 894

When we come to the matter of patrimony, how strictly do we examine what every man is worth before we will trust him with a penny! “Such a man,” we cry, “has a great estate, but it is shrewdly encumbered—a very fair house, but it was built with borrowed money—a numerous family, but he does not keep touch with his creditors—if his debts were paid he would not be worth a groat.” Why do we not take the same course in other things, and examine what every man is worth?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 459

Without a certain and an unchangeable judgment, all the rest is but fluctuation: but “he that always wills and nills the same thing, is undoubtedly in the right.” Liberty and serenity of mind must necessarily ensue upon the mastering of those things which either allure or affright us; when instead of those flashy pleasures, (which even at the best are both vain and hurtful together,) we shall find ourselves possessed of joy transporting and everlasting.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1460

In his duty, he is like that of a good father, that sometimes gently reproves a son, sometimes threatens him; nay, and perhaps corrects him: but no father in his right wits will disinherit a son for the first fault; there must be many and great offences, and only desperate consequences, that should bring him to that decretory resolution. He will make many experiments to try if he can reclaim him first, and nothing but the utmost despair must put him upon extremities.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 193

The unchangeable good-will is an indispensable obligation: and, to say, that nature cannot go out of her course, does not discharge us of _what we owe to Providence_. Shall he be said to will, that may change his mind the next moment? and shall we question the will of the Almighty, whose nature admits no change? Must the stars quit their stations, and fall foul one upon another? must the sun stand still in the middle of his course, and heaven and earth drop into confusion?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 675

It is only in adverse fortune, and in bad times, that we find great examples. Mucius thought himself happier with his hand in the flame, than if it had been in the bosom of his mistress. Fabricius took more pleasure in eating the roots of his own planting than in all the delicacies of luxury and expense. Shall we call Rutilius miserable, whom his very enemies have adored? who, upon a glorious and a public principle, chose rather to lose his country than to return from banishment?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 658

And in this instance of Stilpo, who, when he had lost his country, his wife, his children, the town on fire over his head, himself escaping very hardly and naked out of the flames; “I have saved all my goods,” says he, “my justice, my courage, my temperance, my prudence;” accounting nothing his own, or valuable, and showing how much easier it was to overcome a nation than one wise man.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1090

But this we are sure of, “the fear of death is a continual slavery, as the contempt of it is certain liberty.”

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 318

In these cases, we are to set an estimate upon the persons: there is a great difference betwixt the choosing of a man and the not excluding him: the law is open to the rebellious as well as to the obedient: there are some benefits which, if they were not allowed to all, could not be enjoyed by any. The sun was never made for me, but for the comfort of the world, and for the providential order of the seasons; and yet I am not without my private obligation also.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 936

It was a remarkable piece of honor and policy together, that action of Cæsar’s upon the taking of Pompey’s cabinet at the battle of Pharsalia: it is probable that the letters in it might have discovered who were his friends, and who his enemies; and yet he burnt it without so much as opening it; esteeming it the noblest way of pardoning, to keep himself ignorant both of the offender and of the offense.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 561

His life is ordinate, fearless, equal, secure; he stands firm in all extremities, and bears the lot of his humanity with a divine temper. There is a great difference betwixt the splendor of philosophy and of fortune; the one shines with an original light, the other with a borrowed one; beside that it makes us happy and immortal: for learning shall outlive palaces and monuments.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 728

It is a good remedy in some cases for a man to apply himself to civil affairs and public business; and yet, in this state of life too, what betwixt ambition and calumny, it is hardly safe to be honest. There are, indeed, some cases wherein a wise man will give way; but let him not yield over easily neither; if he marches off, let him have a care of his honor, and make his retreat with his sword in his hand, and his face to the enemy.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 624

I am strangely transported with the thoughts of eternity; nay, with the belief of it; for I have a profound veneration for the opinions of great men, especially when they promise things so much to my satisfaction: for they do promise them, though they do not prove them. In the question of the immortality of the soul, it goes very far with me, a general consent to the opinion of a future reward and punishment; which meditation raises me to the contempt of this life, in hopes of a better.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 653

Now, he that neither lost any thing nor feared any thing in a public ruin, but was safe and at peace in the middle of the flames, and in the heat of a military intemperance and fury—what violence or provocation imaginable can put such a man as this out of the possession of himself? Walls and castles may be mined and battered, but there is no art or engine that can subvert a steady mind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 360

Whatever we owe, it is our part to find where to pay it, and to do it without asking too; for whether the creditor be good or bad, the debt is still the same.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 258

A merchant sells me the corn that keeps me and my family from starving; but he sold it for his interests, as well as I bought it for mine; and so I owe him nothing for it. He that gives for profit, gives to himself; as a physician or a lawyer, gives counsel for a fee, and only makes use of me for his own ends; as a grazier fats his cattle to bring them to a better market. This is more properly the driving of a trade than the cultivating of a generous commerce.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 702

Let him have a care also of _listeners_, _newsmongers_, and _meddlers_ in other people’s matters; for their discourse is commonly of such things as are never profitable, and most commonly dangerous either to be spoken or heard.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 684

Nay, the world is not yet grown so wicked as not to prefer Regulus before Mecænas: and can any man take that to be an evil of which Providence accounted this brave man worthy? “It has pleased God,” says he, “to single me out for an experiment of the force of human nature.” No man knows his own strength or value but by being put to the proof.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 689

“It is hard,” you will say, “for a virtuous man to suffer all sorts of misery, and for a wicked man not only to go free, but to enjoy himself at pleasure.” And is it not the same thing for men of prostituted impudence and wickedness to sleep in a whole skin, when men of honor and honesty bear arms; lie in the trenches, and receive wounds? or for the vestal virgins to rise in the night to their prayers, when common strumpets lie stretching themselves in their beds?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1174

Why may not a man as well contemn riches in his own coffers as in another man’s, and rather hear that they are his than feel them to be so, though it is a great matter not to be corrupted even by having them under the same roof. He is the greater man that is honestly poor in the middle of plenty—but he is the more secure that is free from the temptation of that plenty, and has the least matter for another to design upon.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1462

It is a glorious contemplation for a prince, first to consider the vast multitudes of his people, whose seditious, divided, and impotent passions, would cast all in confusion, and destroy themselves, and public order too, if the hand of government did not restrain them; and thence to pass the examination of his conscience, saying thus to himself, “It is by the choice of Providence that I am here made God’s deputy upon earth, the arbitrator of life and death; and that upon my breath depends the fortune of my people.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 664

It is the part of a cowardly soldier to follow his commander groaning: but a generous man delivers himself up to God without struggling; and it is only for a narrow mind to condemn the order of the world, and to propound rather the mending of Nature than of himself. No man has any cause of complaint against Providence, if that which is right pleases him.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 237

It is not the inverting of the order that will clear this point; (though it is a very preposterous error, to set that first which should be last.) It does not half so much offend me; ranging of pleasure before virtue, as the very comparing of them; and the bringing of the two opposites, and professed enemies, into any sort of competition.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 298

If the benefactor’s bounty must extend to the bad as well as the good; put the case, that I promise a good office to an ungrateful man; we are first to distinguish (as I said before) betwixt a _common benefit_ and a _personal_; betwixt what is given for _merit_ and what for _company_. Secondly, Whether or not we know the person to be ungrateful, and can reasonably conclude, that this vice is _incurable_. Thirdly, A consideration must be had of the promise, how far that may oblige us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 768

Simple meats are out of fashion, and all are collected into one; so that the cook does the office of the stomach; nay, and of the teeth too; for the meat looks as if it were chewed beforehand: here is the luxury of all tastes in one dish, and liker a vomit than a soup. From these compounded dishes arise compounded diseases, which require compounded medicines.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 756

It is true, they have their delights, but not without heavy and anxious thoughts, even in their very enjoyments, beside that, they are followed with repentance, and their frolics are little more than the laughter of so many people out of their wits. Their felicities are full of disquiet, and neither sincere nor well grounded: but they have need of one pleasure to support another; and of new prayers to forgive the errors of their former.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1184

Aristotle takes _anger_ to be, “a desire of paying sorrow for sorrow;” and of plaguing those that have plagued us. It is argued against both, that beasts are angry; though neither provoked by any injury, nor moved with a desire of any body’s grief or punishment. Nay, though they cause it, they do not design or seek it. Neither is _anger_ (how unreasonable soever in itself) found anywhere but in reasonable creatures.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 195

Providence is not moved by anything from without; but the Divine will is an everlasting law, an immutable decree; and the impossibility of variation proceeds from God’s purpose of preserving; for he never repents of his first counsels. It is not with our heavenly as with our earthly father.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 518

That which is right, is not to be valued by _quantity_, _number_, or _time_; a life of a day may be as honest as a life of a hundred years: but yet virtue in one man may have a larger field to show itself in than in another. One man, perhaps, may be in a station to administer unto cities and kingdoms; to contrive good laws, create friendships, and do beneficial offices to mankind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 327

Some there are that we find ungrateful; but what with our forwardness, change of humor and reproaches, there are more that we make so. And this is the business: we give with design, and most to those that are able to give most again. We give to the covetous, and to the ambitious; to those that can never be thankful, (for their desires are insatiable,) and to those that _will_ not.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 875

They had not as yet torn up the bowels of the earth for gold, silver, or precious stones; and so far were they from killing any man, as we do, for a spectacle, that they were not as yet come to it, either in fear or anger; nay, they spared the very fishes. But, after all this, they were innocent because they were ignorant: and there is a great difference betwixt not knowing how to offend and not being willing to do it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 984

But it is with our lives as with our estates, a good husband makes a little go a great way; whereas, let the revenue of a prince fall into the hands of a prodigal, it is gone in a moment. So that the time allotted us, if it were well employed, were abundantly enough to answer all the ends and purposes of mankind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 521

Nothing can be good which gives neither greatness nor security to the mind; but, on the contrary, infects it with insolence, arrogance, and tumor: nor does virtue dwell upon the tip of the tongue, but in the temple of a purified heart. He that depends upon any other good becomes covetous of life, and what belongs to it; which exposes a man to appetites that are vast, unlimited, and intolerable.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 763

His ostentation of it was intolerable; and so was the infinite pains he took to mislead others by his example, who went even fast enough of themselves without driving.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 82

To begin with the latter: “A benefit is a good office, done with intention and judgment;” that is to say, with a due regard to all the circumstances of _what_, _how_, _why_, _when_, _where_, _to whom_, _how much_, and the like; or otherwise: “It is a voluntary and benevolent action that delights the giver in the comfort it brings to the receiver.” It will be hard to draw this subject, either into method or compass: the one, because of the infinite variety and complication of cases; the other, by reason of the large extent of it: for the whole business (almost) of mankind in society falls under this head; the duties of kings and subjects, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, natives and strangers, high and low, rich and poor, strong and weak, friends and enemies.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1114

To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow. Clamorous and public lamentations are not so much the effects of grief as of vain-glory. He that is sadder in company than alone, shows rather the ambition of his sorrow than the piety of it. Nay, and in the violence of his passion there fall out twenty things that set him a-laughing.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1004

I wish with all my soul that I had thought of my end sooner, but I must make the more haste now and spur on like those that set out late upon a journey—it will be better to learn late than not at all—though it be but only to instruct me how I may leave the stage with honor.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1313

In this wandering state of life we meet with many occasions of trouble and displeasure, both great and trivial; and not a day passes but, from men or things, we have some cause or other for offense; as a man must expect to be jostled, dashed, and crowded, in a populous city. One man deceives our expectation; another delays it; and a third crosses it; and if everything does not succeed to our wish, we presently fall out either with the person, the business, the place, our fortune, or ourselves.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 544

It arms us against all difficulties: one man is pressed with death, another with poverty; some with envy, others are offended at Providence, and unsatisfied with the condition of mankind: but _philosophy_ prompts us to relieve the prisoner, the infirm, the necessitous, the condemned; to show the ignorant their errors, and rectify their affections.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 966

Some people make it a question, whether is the greatest delight, the enjoying of an old friendship, or the acquiring of a new one? but it is in the preparing of a friendship, and in the possession of it, as it is with the husbandman in sowing and reaping; his delight is the hope of his labor in the one case, and the fruit of it in the other.