Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 85

Of benefits in general, there are several sorts; as _necessary_, _profitable_, and _delightful_. Some things there are, without which we _cannot_ live; others without which we _ought not_ to live; and some, again, without which we _will not_ live. In the first rank are those which deliver us from capital dangers, or apprehensions of death: and the favor is rated according to the hazard; for the greater the extremity, the greater seems the obligation.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 20

The reader will, in some measure, be able to judge by this taste what he is farther to expect; that is to say, as to the cast of my design, and the simplicity of the style and dress; for that will still be the same, only accompanied with variety of matter. Whether it pleases the world or no, the care is taken; and yet I could wish that it might be as delightful to others upon the perusal, as it has been to me in the speculation.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 110

Now, since it is the _mind_, and not the _condition_ of a person, that prints the value upon the benefit, a servant may oblige his master, and so may a subject his sovereign, or a common soldier his general, by doing more than he is expressly bound to do. Some things there are, which the law neither commands nor forbids; and here the servant is free. It would be very hard for a servant to be chastised for doing less than his duty, and not thanked for it when he does more.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 181

a fire, or a bit of meat, when a man is pinched with hunger or cold? a defence against thieves, and a thousand other matters of moment, that cost but little? And yet we know that the skipper has but his freight for our passage; and the carpenters and bricklayers do their work by the day. Those are many times the greatest obligations in truth, which in vulgar opinions are the smallest: as comfort to the sick, poor captives; good counsel, keeping of people from wickedness, etc.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1411

Before we lay anything to heart, let us ask ourselves if we have not done the same thing to others. But where shall we find an equal judge? He that loves another man’s wife (only because she is another’s) will not suffer his own to be so much looked upon. No man is so fierce against calumny as the evil speaker; none so strict exactors of modesty in a servant as those that are most prodigal of their own. We carry our neighbors’ crimes in sight, and we throw our own over our shoulders. The intemperance of a bad son is chastised by a worse father; and the luxury that we punish in others, we allow to ourselves. The tyrant exclaims against homicide; and sacrilege against theft. We are angry with the persons, but not with the faults.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1351

Nay, if a man imitates our gait, speech, or any natural imperfection, it puts us out of all patience; as if the counterfeit were more grievous than the doing of the thing itself. Some cannot endure to hear of their age, nor others of their poverty; and they make the thing the more taken notice of the more they desire to hide it. Some bitter jest (for the purpose) was broken upon you at the table: keep better company then.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 490

Virtue is that perfect good which is the complement of a _happy life_; the only immortal thing that belongs to mortality—it is the knowledge both of others and itself—it is an invincible greatness of mind, not to be elevated or dejected with good or ill fortune. It is sociable and gentle, free, steady, and fearless, content within itself, full of inexhaustible delights, and it is valued for itself.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 982

In the distribution of human life, we find that a great part of it passes away in _evil doing_; a greater yet in doing just _nothing at all_: and effectually the whole in doing things _beside our business_. Some hours we bestow upon ceremony and servile attendances; some upon our pleasures, and the remainder runs at waste.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 224

My son’s life is as dear to me as my own; and in saving him you preserve me too: in this case I will acknowledge myself obliged to you, that is to say, in my son’s name; for in my own, and in strictness, I am not; but I am content to make myself a voluntary debtor. What if he had borrowed money? my paying of it does not at all make it my debt. It would put me to the blush perhaps to have him taken in bed with another man’s wife; but that does not make me an adulterer.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 955

The best way is to retire, and associate only with those that may be the better for us, and we for them. These respects are mutual; for while we teach, we learn. To deal freely, I dare not trust myself in the hands of much company: I never go abroad that I come home again the same man I went out.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1500

“Cinna,” says Augustus, “_before I go any farther_, you must promise not to give me the interruption of one syllable until I have told you all I have to say, and you shall have liberty afterwards to say what you please. You cannot forget, that when I found you in arms against me, and not only made my _enemy_, but _born_ so, I gave you your life and fortune.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 973

But let us have a care, above all things, that our kindness be rightfully founded; for where there is any other invitation to friendship than the friendship itself, that friendship will be bought and sold. He derogates upon the majesty of it that makes it only dependent upon good fortune.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 581

There are some dispositions that embrace good things as soon as they hear them; but they will still need quickening by admonition and precept. We are rash and forward in some cases, and dull in others; and there is no repressing of the one humor, or raising of the other, but by removing the causes of them; which are (in one word) _false admiration_ and _false fear_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 605

I will remember always that I am a man, and then consider, that if I am _happy_, it will not last _always_; if _unhappy_, I may be _other_ if I please. I will carry my life in my hand, and deliver it up readily when it shall be called for. I will have a care of being a slave to myself; for it is a perpetual, a shameful, and the heaviest of all servitudes: and this may be done by moderate desires.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 274

Assiduity of obligation strikes upon the conscience as well as the memory, and pursues an ungrateful man till he becomes grateful: if one good office will not do it, try a second, and then a third. No man can be so thankless, but either shame, occasion, or example, will, at some time or other, prevail upon him. The very beasts themselves, even lions and tigers, are gained by good usage: beside, that one obligation does naturally draw on another; and a man would not willingly leave his own work imperfect. “I have helped him thus far, and I will even go through with it now.” So that, over and above the delight and the virtue of obliging, one good turn is a shouting-horn to another. This, of all hints, is perhaps the most effectual, as well as the most generous.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 357

To match this scruple of receiving money with another of keeping it; and the sum not above three pence, or a groat at most. There was a certain Pythagorean that contracted with a cobbler for a pair of shoes, and some three or four days after, going to pay him his money, the shop was shut up; and when he had knocked a great while at the door, “Friend,” says a fellow, “you may hammer your heart out there, for the man that you look for is dead.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1109

How vain a thing is it for us to enter upon projects, and to say to ourselves, “Well, I will go build, purchase, discharge such offices, settle my affairs, and then retire!” We are all of us born to the same casualties—all equally frail and uncertain of to-morrow. At the very altar where we pray for life, we learn to die, by seeing the sacrifices killed before us. But there is no need of a wound, or searching the heart for it, when the noose of a cord, or the smothering of a pillow will do the work. All things have their seasons—they begin, they increase, and they die. The heavens and the earth grow old, and are appointed their periods.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 586

And so for the _virtues_; it is to no purpose to set a high esteem upon prudence, _fortitude_, _temperance_, _justice_, if we do not first know _what virtue is_; whether _one_ or _more_; or if he that has _one_, has _all_; or _how they differ_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 646

The greater may be served in privacy, solitude, contemplation, and perchance that way better than any other; but it was the intent of Nature, however, that we should serve both. A good man may serve the public, his friend, and himself in any station: if he be not for the sword, let him take the gown; if the bar does not agree with him, let him try the pulpit; if he be silenced abroad, let him give counsel at home, and discharge the part of a faithful friend and a temperate companion.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1271

It was never seen that a whole nation was in love with one woman, or unanimously bent upon one vice: but here and there some particular men are tainted with some particular crimes; whereas in anger, a single word many times inflames the whole multitude, and men betake themselves presently to fire and sword upon it; the rabble take upon them to give laws to their governors; the common soldiers to their officers, to the ruin, not only of private families, but of kingdoms: turning their arms against their own leaders, and choosing their own generals.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 223

There are some benefits, which although conferred upon one man, may yet work upon others; as a sum of money may be given to a poor man for his own sake, which in the consequence proves the relief of his whole family; but still the immediate receiver is the debtor for it; for the question is not, to whom it comes afterward to be transferred, but who is the principal? and upon whom it was first bestowed?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 437

There can be no setting a day for the requiting of benefits as for the payment of money, nor any estimate upon the benefits themselves; but the whole matter rests in the conscience of both parties: and then there are so many degrees of it, that the same rule will never serve all. Beside that, to proportion it as the benefit is greater or less, will be both impracticable and without reason. One good turn saves my life; another, my freedom, or peradventure my very soul.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 507

There are some virtues, I confess, which a good man cannot be without, and yet he had rather have no occasion to employ them. If there were any difference, I should prefer the virtues of patience before those of pleasure; for it is braver to break through difficulties than to temper our delights. But though the subject of virtue may possibly be against nature, as to be burnt or wounded, yet the virtue itself of _an invincible patience_ is according to nature.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 372

Some people are so sour and ill-natured, that they take it for an affront to have an obligation or a return offered them, to the discouragement both of bounty and gratitude together. The not doing, and the not receiving, of benefits, are equally a mistake. He that refuses a new one, seems to be offended at an old one: and yet sometimes I would neither return a benefit, no, nor so much as receive it, if I might.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1115

At the long-run, time cures all, but it were better done by moderation and wisdom. Some people do as good as set a watch upon themselves, as if they were afraid that their grief would make an escape. The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself. When any body is within hearing, what groans and outcries!

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 101

The giving of him a being was but the office of a father; a simple act, a benefit given at a venture: beside that, he had a participant in it, and a regard to his family. He gave only a single life, and he received a happy one. My mother brought me into the world naked, exposed, and void of reason; but my reputation and my fortune are advanced by my virtue.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 826

but “what if the thing we fear should come to pass?” Perhaps it will be the better for us. Suppose it be _death_ itself, why may it not prove the glory of my life? Did not poison make Socrates famous? and was not Cato’s sword a great part of his honor? “Do we fear any misfortune to befall us?” We are not presently sure that it will happen. How many deliverances have come unlooked for? and how many mischiefs that we looked for have never come to pass?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1046

Not but that solitude and company may be allowed to take their turns: the one creates in us the love of mankind, the other that of ourselves; solitude relieves us when we are sick of company, and conversation when we are weary of being alone; so that the one cures the other.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 73

Well, says Seneca, if after the sweetness of life, as I have represented it to thee, thou hadst rather entertain an honorable death, I shall not envy thy example; consulting, at the same time, the fame of the person he loved, and his own tenderness, for fear of the injuries that might attend her when he was gone. Our resolution, says he, in this generous act, may be equal, but thine will be the greater reputation. After this the veins of both their arms were opened at the same time.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1100

What Providence has made necessary, human prudence should comply with cheerfully: as there is a necessity of death, so that necessity is equal and invincible. No man has cause of complaint for that which every man must suffer as well as himself. When we _should_ die, we _will not_, and when we _would not_ we _must_: but our fate is fixed, and unavoidable is the decree. Why do we then stand trembling when the time comes?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1088

Some people are so impatient of life, that they are still wishing for death; but he that wishes to die does not desire it: let us rather wait God’s pleasure, and pray for health and life. If we have a mind to live, why do we wish to die? If we have a mind to die, we may do it without talking of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 496

The loss of health is followed with sickness, and the loss of sight with blindness; but this does not hold in the loss of friends and children, where there is rather something to the contrary to supply that loss: that is to say, _virtue_, which fills the mind, and takes away the desire of what we have not. What matters it whether the water be stopped or not, so long as the fountain is safe? Is a man ever the wiser for a multitude of friends, or the more foolish for the loss of them?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 33

Lactantius again. “An invective,” says Seneca in his Exhortations, “is the masterpiece of most of our philosophers; and if they fall upon the subject of _avarice_, _lust_, _ambition_, they lash out into such excess of bitterness, as if railing were a mark of their profession. They make me think of gallipots in an apothecary’s shop, that have remedies without and poison within.”

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 358

And when our friends are dead, we hear no more news of them; but yours, that are to live again, will shift well enough,” (alluding to Pythagora’s transmigration).

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 502

Their injuries they call _benefits_, and expect a man should thank them for doing him a mischief—they cover their most notorious iniquities with a pretext of justice.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1435

One sick person gives no great disturbance in a family; but when it comes to a depopulating plague, all people fly from it. And why should a prince expect any man to be good whom he has taught to be wicked?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1053

But what is it we fear? “Oh! it is a terrible thing to die.” Well; and is it not better once to suffer it, than always to fear it? The earth itself suffers both _with_ me, and _before_ me. How many islands are swallowed up in the sea! how many towns do we sail over! nay, how many nations are wholly lost, either by inundations or earthquakes! and shall I be afraid of my little body?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 337

I do not love to hear any man complain that he has met with a thankless man. If he has met but with one, he has either been very fortunate or very careful. And yet care is not sufficient: for there is no way to escape the hazard of losing a benefit but the not bestowing of it, and to neglect a duty to myself for fear another should abuse it. It is _another’s_ fault if he be ungrateful, but it is _mine_ if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 833

The things most to be feared I take to be of three kinds; _want_, _sickness_, and those _violences_ that may be imposed upon us by a _strong hand_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1196

There is no doubt but anger is moved by the species of an injury; but whether that motion be voluntary or involuntary is the point in debate; though it seems manifest to me that _anger_ does nothing but where the mind goes along with it, for, first, to take an offence, and then to meditate a revenge, and after that to lay both propositions together, and say to myself, “This injury ought not to have been done; but as the case stands, I must do myself right.” This discourse can never proceed without the concurrence of the will.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 788

Whatsoever is laid upon us by necessity, we should receive generously; for it is foolish to strive with what we cannot avoid. We are born subjects, and to obey God is perfect liberty. He that does this shall be free, safe, and quiet: all his actions shall succeed to his wish: and what can any man desire more than to want nothing from without, and to have all things desirable within himself?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 188

Not that a man can be bound by one benefit to suffer all sorts of injuries; for there are some cases wherein we lie under no obligation for a benefit; because a greater injury absolves it: as, for example, a man helps me out of a law-suit, and afterwards commits a rape upon my daughter; where the following impiety cancels the antecedent obligation. A man lends me a little money, and then sets my house on fire; the debtor is here turned creditor, when the injury outweighs the benefit.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 19

This contemplation has carried me a little out of my way, but it has at length brought me to my text again, for there is in the bottom of it the highest opposition imaginable of _ingratitude_ and _obligation_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1200

Can any man read the death of Pompey, and not be touched with an indignation? The sound of a trumpet rouses the spirits and provokes courage. It makes a man sad to see the shipwreck even of an enemy; and we are much surprised by fear in other cases—all these motions are not so much affections as preludes to them. The clashing of arms or the beating of a drum excites a war-horse: nay, a song from Xenophantes would make Alexander take his sword in his hand.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1442

For _pity_ proceeds from a _narrowness of mind_, that respects rather the _fortune_ than the _cause_. It is a kind of moral sickness, contracted from other people’s misfortune: such another weakness as laughing or yawning for company, or as that of sick eyes that cannot look upon others that are bleared without dropping themselves.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 463

The seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a brave mind, that has fortune under his feet. He that can look death in the face, and bid it welcome; open his door to poverty, and bridle his appetites; this is the man whom Providence has established in the possession of inviolable delights. The pleasures of the vulgar are ungrounded, thin, and superficial; but the others are solid and _eternal_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 365

Take it kindly, and it is requited: not that the debt itself is discharged, but it is nevertheless a discharge of the conscience. I will yet distinguish betwixt the debtor that becomes insolvent by expenses upon whores and dice, and another that is undone by fire or thieves; nor do I take this gratitude for a payment, but there is no danger, I presume, of being arrested for such a debt.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1275

Nor does it rise by degrees, as other passions, but flashes like gunpowder, blowing up all in a moment. Neither does it only press to the mark, but overbears everything in the way to it. Other vices drive us, but this hurries us headlong; other passions stand firm themselves, though perhaps we cannot resist them; but this consumes and destroys itself: it falls like thunder or a tempest, with an irrevocable violence, that gathers strength in the passage, and then evaporates in the conclusion.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 995

The wit of man is not able to express the blindness of human folly in taking so much more care of our fortunes, our houses, and our money, than we do of our lives—everybody breaks in upon the one _gratis_, but we betake ourselves to fire and sword if any man invades the other. There is no dividing in the case of patrimony, but people share our time with us at pleasure, so profuse are we of that only thing whereof we may be honestly covetous.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 977

But my end of friendship is to have one dearer to me than myself, and for the saving of whose life I would cheerfully lay down my own; taking this along with me, that only wise men can be friends, others are but companions; and that there is a great difference also betwixt love and friendship; the one may sometimes do us hurt, the other always does us good, for the one friend is hopeful to another in all cases, as well in prosperity as in affliction.