297
Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist. We should not like old friends to give up certain peculiarities.
298
It is said of a man that he will soon die, when he acts in any way unlike himself.
299
What kind of faults in ourselves should we retain, nay, even cultivate? Those which rather flatter other people than offend them.
300
The passions are good or bad qualities, only intensified.
301
Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once.
302
Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous.
303
Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence towards those we love.