Contempt and admiration are equally incident to
narrow minds: he whose comprehension can take
in the whole subordination of mankind, and whose
perspicacity can pierce to the real state of things
through the thin veils of fortune or of fashion, will
discover meanness in the highest stations, and dignity
in the meanest; and find that no man can become
venerable but by virtue, or contemptible but
by wickedness.
In the midst of this universal hurry, no man
ought to be so little influenced by example, or so
void of honest emulation, as to stand a lazy spectator
of incessant labour; or please himself with the
mean happiness of a drone, while the active swarms
are buzzing about him: no man is without some
quality, by the due application of which he might
deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that
has but little in his power, should be in haste to do
that little, lest he be confounded with him that can
do nothing.
By this general concurrence of endeavours, arts
of every kind have been so long cultivated, that all
the wants of man may be immediately supplied;
idleness can scarcely form a wish which she may not
gratify by the toil of others, or curiosity dream of a
toy, which the shops are not ready to afford her.
Pages:
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332