The
art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who
steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset. Pleasure
is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after
that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure
against pain, is to retire within ourselves, and to suffice for our own
happiness. Those which depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a
wise man will count on; for nothing is ours, which another may deprive
us of. Hence the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Ever in
our power, always leading us to something new, never cloying, we
ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world,
contemplating truth and nature, matter and motion, the laws which bind
up their existence, and that Eternal Being, who made and bound them up
by those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the bustle and tumult of
society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves without them.
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and
the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why
enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little
gall poured into our cup, that we must heed help to drink that of our
neighbor? A friend dies, or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off.
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