If You Are Idle, Be

The Greatest Human Virtue Bears No Proportion To Human Vanity. We Always Think Ourselves Better Than We Are, And Are Generally Desirous That Others Should Think Us Still Better Than We Think Ourselves. To Praise Us For Actions Or Dispositions Which Deserve Praise Is Not To Confer A Benefit, But To Pay A Tribute. We Have Always Pretensions To Fame Which, In Our Own Hearts, We Know To Be Disputable, And Which We Are Desirous To Strengthen By A New Suffrage; We Have Always Hopes Which We Suspect To Be Fallacious, And Of Which We Eagerly Snatch At Every Confirmation.

How Small Of All That Human Hearts Endure/that Part Which Laws Or Kings Can Cause Or Cure.

Complaints Are Vain; We Will Try To. Do Better Another Time. To-morrow And To-morrow. A Few Designs And A Few Failures, And The Time Of Designing Is Past.

But Grant, The Virtues Of A Temp'rate Prime Bless With An Age Exempt From Scorn Or Crime; An Age That Melts With Unperceived Decay, And Glides In Modest Innocence Away

Confidence Is A Plant Of Slow Growth; Especially In An Aged Bosom