It is a duty not to allow yourself to think of any living man, still less to treat him, as if your hopes of his amendment were utterly dead and gone.
You must not be much surprised at the ingratitude of those to whom you have given nothing but money.
Once give your mind to suspicion, and there will be sure to be food enough for it. In the stillest night, the air is filled with sounds for the wakeful ear that is resolved to listen.
A misproud man resolves to abide by the evil words which he has spoken in anger. This freezing of foam is wilfully unnatural; and turns a brief madness into a settled insanity.
A man of any wisdom, in domestic authority, so far from making large claims to the love of those whom he rules, and exacting all manner of observance as his due, will often think with fear how unworthy he is of the affection even of the dullest and least-gifted creature about him.
In commenting on any error of an agent or dependant, beware of making your own vexation, and not the real offence, the measure of your blame. This is a most frequent source of injustice, and one, moreover, which tends to prevent anything like consistent training.
The poor, the humble, and your dependants, will often be afraid to ask their due from you: be the more mindful of it yourself.
With what degree of satisfaction do you feel that you could meet those persons in a future state over whom you have any influence now? Your heart’s answer to this question is somewhat of a test of your behaviour towards them.
How ready we should often be to forgive those who are angry with us, if we could only see how much of their anger arises from vexation with themselves for having begun to be angry at all.
I am not sorry to introduce a maxim, like the above, which relates, perhaps, rather more to dependants than to those in authority, and which claims a place among precepts on social government, only as it may tend to promote social harmony and peace. I have not attempted, throughout, to give any account of the duties of dependants, which, however, are easily inferred as supplementary to the duties of masters. It is not to be supposed that any relation in life is one-sided, that kindness is to be met by indifference, or that loyalty to those who lead us is not a duty of the highest order. But, fortunately, the proneness of men to regard with favour those put in authority over them is very strong; and I have but little fear of finding any large body of thoughtful and kind masters suffering from permanent indifference, or ingratitude, on the part of their dependants.