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Posted by MI5-Victim on 01/14/08 23:55
overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally
painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and, if
it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it
by the future and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for
a time which we have no certainty of reaching.
Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with
the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we
think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The
present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future
alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are
always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.
173. They say that eclipses foretoken misfortune, because misfortunes are
common, so that, as evil happens so often, they often foretell it; whereas
if they said that they predict good fortune, they would often be wrong. They
attribute good fortune only to rare conjunctions of the heavens; so they
seldom fail in prediction.
174. Misery.--Solomon and Job have best known and best spoken of the misery
of man; the former the most fortunate, and the latter the most unfortunate
of men; the former knowing the vanity of pleasures from experience, the
latter the reality of evils.
175. We know ourselves so little that many think they are about to die when
they are well, and many think they are well when they are near death,
unconscious of approaching fever, or of the abscess ready to form itself.
176. Cromwell was about to ravage all Christendom; the royal family was
undone, and his own for ever established, save for a little grain of sand
which formed in his ureter. Rome herself was trembling under him; but this
small piece of gravel having formed there, he is dead, his fa
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